Abiit, excessit, evasit
by ecaterana
Summary: Bill Weasley OC, set during Ginny's seventh year. HBP compliant.
1. Chapter 1

I have absolutely no affiliation with Ms. Rowling, Bloomsbury, Warner Brothers, or Scholastic, which means that (sadly) there is no profit at all being made from this story. My only intention is to have a bit of fun.

* * *

The bitter wind seemed to swirl cruelly about her as Gwenaëlle Gurley sat, with her knees tucked under her chin, waiting. She had remained on the bench whilst all the students and their families had greeted each other, gathered their trunks, and departed the station. Now, as she lingered, she had relaxed her rigid posture and begun to lose herself in her thoughts.

This was the first time that there was to be no one coming for her to the train and, although Gwen knew it was foolish to feel so scared when she was _almost_ eighteen, the idea of navigating muggle London alone was overwhelming. Mother and Father had always come for her at the end of the school year and Father had never failed to collect her for holidays. However, Father had got ill again and none of the St Mungo's retrogrades consultants had been able to assuage the symptoms of the old curse this time. Therefore, since Mother had taken Father to Brest to see another consultant and taken the household staff with her, Gwen was going to be staying with Uncle Rupert for the holiday. She knew that Aunt Philippa detested Mother and Uncle Rupert had no interest in his brother's step-daughter, so she had not been surprised that she was responsible for transporting herself to Uncle Rupert's home. Mother would be furious when she found out, but Mother wouldn't know until after the fact, so Gwen would merely have to accept that the upcoming holiday was sure to be dreary and miserable.

As she shivered slightly from the bitterness of the wind and pulled her cloak closer round, Gwen wondered if she might be less scared of leaving the Wizarding platform and entering the station if she had been raised to have more freedom like her friends had been. The truth was that she had never been anywhere in Britain alone. Mother had never allowed it since she did not trust Gwen to be able to look after herself and did not feel that Britain was a very safe place for young witches. Mother had very decided opinions about the complete unsuitability of anything or anyplace that was located outside of France. In fact, the only thing produced outside France that Mother considered to be acceptable was Father.

Gwen suddenly laughed aloud at herself and thought, 'There is no reason to be silly about this. It can't be that hard to use these 'tackie' things if muggles can do it.' Thereupon Gwen stood up sharply and pulled over her trunk and the cage for her very unimpressed cat, which had been pawing at the bars and yowling for almost a quarter hour, and placed them on one of the remaining trolleys. She pushed through the barrier and started to walk across the floor of the number 10 platform towards where one could enter the rest of the station.

As she pressed through the crush, Gwen noticed an Information sign and considered whether she felt brave enough to consult a muggle guide for help. Deciding almost immediately that this was too much to expect, Gwen looked round the crowd and saw a group of school girls, who were clearly muggles, standing by an espresso shop and giggling loudly as they looked at something that one of the girls was holding in her hand. Gwen pulled her trolley close to her and waited to see if the girls were going to leave the station. Perhaps they would be using these tackie things so she could sort out what they were and how to use them by just watching what the girls did. After several moments the muggle girl placed the small silvery object in her pocket and, just as Gwen had almost decided that they were not going to leave, the muggle girl and her friends began to walk towards platform 8. Gwen marched forward more boldly than she really felt and trailed just behind the group, pushing her trolley awkwardly and skirting round the people who were rushing past, as she followed the group of girls past a Transport Police office and round the end of platform 8. She had walked this path enough times in past years to know that they were headed towards the main thoroughfare.

However, as they approached a staircase with a large sign labelled "Underground", Gwen remembered something that she had learnt in her Muggle Studies class. The muggles had trains that they buried underground, which they used to get about in London instead of a floo network. Apparently the girls were not going to be using a tackie, but were going to use one of those buried trains. Gwen turned her trolley towards a store that seemed to be selling strongly scented muggle beauty potions. She now had no idea what she should do. There weren't any signs directing one towards tackies. Perhaps she should find an exit and go outside to look about.

Deciding that this was really the best plan, Gwen found a trolley point and hurried over to dispose of her trolley and arrange her trunk and cat cage so she could manage them alone. But just as she was trying again to balance Alaric's cage on the top of her trunk, she suddenly thought she heard someone call out her name. Gwen turned round and saw with dismay that her friend Ginny Weasley was waving to her. Almost knocking over her trunk in surprise, Gwen hastily excused herself to the man whose foot she had just smashed with a trunk wheel and tried to walk calmly over to Ginny, who was hurrying towards her.

With her red hair fluffed wildly about her face from either the wind outside or hurrying through the crowd, Ginny raced up to Gwen's side and asked in a breathless voice, "Didn't your family come? Why didn't you say that you were alone?"

As Ginny spoke, a very tall wizard with a short, clipped beard, shoulder-length red hair, and a deeply scarred face reached where Ginny and Gwen were standing and placed his hand lightly on Ginny's shoulder. Gwen barely looked at her friend's eldest brother before replying tersely, "They aren't able to come, so I am using a tackie."

Gwen saw that Ginny looked slightly confused, but it was not Ginny who answered. Bill Weasley asked in a clear voice, "Have you ever taken a taxi before, Miss Gurley?"

Gwen could not help but feel a strange chill move up her spine as she looked up into the once handsome face of her friend's brother. Gwen had thought him very nice looking when she had first seen him during her third year. It was still a shock to see how Bill Weasley's face had been ruined by the werewolf's attack and Gwen was superstitious enough to still be slightly unsure of him, especially considering what Father had once told her about Bill Weasley. Gwen replied nervously, with a displeased glance at Ginny, "No, I haven't. Are they very difficult to find? I'm not even certain that I'll know one when I do find it because I'm not too sure what they look like really."

Gwen flushed with embarrassment as Ginny's brother laughed light-heartedly. She felt slightly resentful when he replied, "They are just automobiles, Miss Gurley - special cars that you can hire. They aren't anything terrifying. Come on then, bung that trunk over and we'll organise a taxi home for you."

Gwen gripped the handle on her trunk and briefly considered telling him that she was entirely capable of managing her things, but when Bill reached out his hand to take the trunk from her Gwen released it and turned to Ginny. "I thought you had left."

"Well Mum asked me again if I were sure you were alright and that's when Bill told me that you looked sort of evasive when Mum asked you about who was collecting you and so I thought I'd just run back and see if you _were _alright. If you would have told me that they weren't coming then we would have arranged to help, Gwen."

"I don't need anything, Ginny, really. I am just supposed to take this tackie to Uncle Rupert's house in Holburn. They've sent me muggle money to pay. I hope it is enough." Gwen looked over at Bill, who was holding both her trunk and the cage for Alaric and obviously feeling awkward, and she asked him stiffly, "Do you know if the note with a fifty on it is the right amount?"

"More than enough, I should think. Holburn isn't far from here you know. We'll need to go over by platform 1." Bill nodded in the direction where they were headed and waited for his sister and Gwen to follow him. They all three pushed silently through the holiday crowd and, as they reached an exit, Bill hastily transferred the cat cage to the same hand that was pulling the trunk and opened the door.

As she walked through, Gwen silently hoped that Ginny's family was not waiting nearby. If Mrs Weasley were to come over to her then it would be almost impossible for Gwen to extricate herself without involving the Weasleys further in her situation. Aunt Philippa would not be pleased to have her laziness and neglect displayed to another Wizarding family.

Just as Gwen was about to ask Bill to return her trunk and cat so she could make her escape, Bill spoke unexpectedly. "Why don't you go back with Mum, Gin, and I'll apparate home on my own? I'll make sure Miss Gurley gets home safely."

Gwen looked with surprise up at Bill and saw him smile gently, so she then turned to Ginny, who seemed oddly relieved.

"You'll take her home, Bill? You know you have no idea what you are doing, Gwen. It would be better if Bill did take you."

Gwen tried to smile confidently at Ginny and looked at her friend's brother as she said, "I really can manage alone, I think. If you can find the tackie for me then all I'm supposed to do is give it the address and it takes me there. At least that is what Uncle Rupert said." As soon as she had spoken Gwen could see that she had somehow insulted Ginny's brother. Remembering her mother's adage about how the British could take offence to the oddest things and knowing that she would have accepted any French wizard's escort without thinking, Gwen shook her head and amended her statement, "It is really very kind of you to offer. I think I would appreciate your help, actually."

Ginny looked at Bill and then placed her hand on Gwen's arm saying, "Good, then you'll be alright? I had better hurry back to Mum before she goes spare worrying that I've disappeared, too."

Gwen saw a pinched look come over Bill Weasley's face as he nodded in response to his sister's uncharacteristically tactless statement. Gwen quickly said, "I'll be fine, Ginny. Anyway, I'll be seeing you on the train back soon enough."

Ginny, who had also noticed her brother's reaction, said with a trace of embarrassment, "Right. I wish you were coming on Thursday with Elisabeth, but I'll owl to you, don't worry. Remember, don't open your present until it really is Christmas or else don't say you weren't warned."

Gwen returned Ginny's friendly smile and gave her a quick hug before Ginny turned to her brother and said, "Thanks, Bill. I'll promise Mum you'll be back in time to eat."

Gwen watched for a few moments until Ginny had disappeared back inside. She then turned with a feeling of deep discomfort to face Bill, who was smiling lightly down at her. He merely asked gently, "Ready?"

"Thank you. It's very kind of you."

Bill frowned slightly and rubbed his cheek, but he replied with a half smile, "It's no trouble. Muggle London can be confusing if you aren't used to it." Bill adjusted the cage in his hand and jostled the handle of the trunk as he nodded towards a taxi approaching the kerb. He spoke awkwardly, "Come on, we'll try for that one."

* * *

As Gwen scratched behind her cat's ears and stared at the roll of parchment that lay on the window seat in front of her, she silently said a prayer that Father would finally be able to find a cure from the consultants in Brest. Father had always said that _Breizh_ was damp and unpleasant in comparison to Wales and that if mother moved it would be without him. But now Mother was making plans to stay in the Morbihan for as much as four months whilst Father underwent the treatments. 

Mother had promised that Gwen would be allowed to come to visit them during the next holiday, but Gwen knew that Mother could easily change her mind. Gwen wasn't even sure that she wanted to go back to Brittany so close to her eighteenth birthday. Uncle had already begun doing some preliminary research into which of the better Breton families had unmarried sons under 35.

Picking up her mother's owl and holding it tightly in her hand, Gwen wondered if she had too much independence of mind and not enough of the sense of duty and family devotion that a Breton witch ought to have. It was a family's right to make these decisions for a daughter. Perhaps living amongst the British had turned her head and she needed to be reminded of who she really was. It would surely be hard to forget that you are the daughter of the 17th Master of the Bizouarn and one of the northern Toussaints if you were living amongst your own in Morbihan.

* * *

Note: This is another story in response to a challenge from my group, although this time there won't be a pair of stories - just the one. The challenge is to pair either Bill or Charlie Weasley with another of my original characters. The story does take place after what ought to have been Harry, Ron, and Hermione's seventh year. It is now Ginny's seventh year and Voldemort is irreparably vanquished.

I won't be offering many answers as to what occurred during the war, although quite a number of both canon characters and my own characters have been killed off or imprisoned. I won't say that these are actually the characters that I believe will be killed off in book seven, but merely those which made the most sense for my story. Although I mention a few characters and use some of my inventions from other stories, it should not be necessary to have read either of the other stories to understand this one. As always, I appreciate everyone who reads my story and would welcome any reader comments.

Ecaterana


	2. Chapter 2

Elisabeth MacLeod made a quick search with her eyes of the library tables along the far wall and then turned to the girl standing beside her, who looked extremely irritated. "I don't think that she is in here after all, Ginny. Perhaps she's gone back to the common room already."

"She hasn't. We were just there fifteen minutes ago, Elisabeth, and she would have needed to pass us on the way here to get to the stairs to the tower. Unless she was upstairs, I suppose. We haven't looked upstairs either. She could have gone to talk to Professor Sinistra."

"She talked to Professor Sinistra this morning, Ginny. Weren't you listening?"

Ginny shook her head and said quietly, "I suppose I wasn't. She's been so odd lately. She didn't even want to go out to the practise field with me this afternoon. She's been very quiet since the holiday. She won't talk to me about it either. Has she said anything to you, Elisabeth?"

"Well, erm, well, I don't know."

Ginny regarded her friend with an intelligent eye and said, "She has then. It is her family, isn't it?"

Elisabeth's face reddened and she stammered, "I…you know I can't say, Ginny."

Ginny nodded and pulled Elisabeth forward by the hand saying, "Come on then. We'll go back to the common room and see if she has returned. You're really worried about her, aren't you?"

"A little. She's always so private about things that one never really knows how she is feeling if one doesn't pay strictest attention to her. But she's been avoiding sweets and ignores what she eats to the point she doesn't even spread butter on her toast, which means that she's terribly upset about something. But she is still bothering about her hair, which means that at least she isn't ill I suppose."

Ginny led them both up the stairs and after a moment replied, "The day that Gwen doesn't preen over her hair is the day merpeople take to the skies, Elisabeth. But if she doesn't even tell _you_ what she is feeling then she must be miserable."

"She never really tells me anything truly serious, Ginny. You know that."

Ginny sighed with frustration and said, "Larkspur," and waited for the portrait to open as she replied to Elisabeth, "Yes, I know. I can't help but feel annoyed that she doesn't really trust either of us."

Elisabeth, who had already determined that Gwen was not in the common room, settled onto a chair near the blazing fire and thoughtfully replied, "It isn't that she doesn't trust us, Ginny. She just doesn't think that it is proper to discuss private problems. I know what you mean, of course. There is always that barrier." Elisabeth watched as Ginny flopped into a squidgy, flowered armchair. Elisabeth nervously raised a hand to her mouth and began chewing on a fingernail before saying uneasily, "Sometimes I wonder if anyone knows the real Gwen Gurley. There is a lot more to her than her odd habits, French robes, and archaic ideas. I'm not saying she isn't a true friend. She'd do anything for us. But although we've been best friends for seven years, I think she knows me loads better than I do her."

Ginny tucked her feet underneath her and said tiredly, "You might be right. I have never felt like I really understand her, but then she's French, isn't she? It's so easy to forget that when she speaks with such a Welsh accent. But the French are an odd lot. Anyway, although I don't suppose I know anyone more loyal, she's also the last person I would want against me. I've often wondered how close she was to not getting sorted into Gryffindor."

Elisabeth looked puzzled and asked with surprise, "What do you mean? She's too clever for Hufflepuff and too kind to be a Ravenclaw. She's a perfect Gryffindor."

Ginny started peeling open the box of a chocolate frog and did not look up as she replied, "You of all people should know her best, Elisabeth. If you think she's all Gryffindor you might be right. But I don't think I'm wrong. And there are four houses, you know. In any case, wherever she is she may stay there, Elisabeth, because I'm too tired to keep looking. She'll come back here eventually and we can give her the owl then."

* * *

Elisabeth Macleod, who had been poring with avid interest through the latest issue of _The Scots Wizard_, picked up a third chocolate pastry as she ran a finger along the line that she was reading. "Have you heard that they finally found Mackenzie Grant?" 

"No, have they? Was he in Kazakhstan after all?"

"No, the Shetlands. Hiding in the open, I suppose."

Gwen moved a piece of bacon around on her plate as she said seriously, "At least they've found him. The Central Ministry are still looking for Jean-Jacques and Etienne Tavoillot. I read yesterday that they aren't going to execute Fabian Lefevre after all, however. He is technically British so the Central Ministry are going to transport him to your Ministry of Magic. That is _not_ a popular decision. He killed too many French aurors with that horrible bleeding curse."

Elisabeth frowned, "I thought that they had the Tavoillot brothers already."

Gwen pushed aside the bacon and picked a half slice of toast. "No, they only found the oldest one, René."

"Oh. Was Lefevre the one who tried to turn in some fellow Andromeda members for leniency?"

Gwen laughed derisively, "Yes, but it wouldn't have helped him. After Professor Snape's escape, you know of course that he was a member, the Chief Sorcerer began working closely with the Ministry to keep the Ministry from closing down the society, so they already knew the names on the Andromeda rota and what Warlockry exams each member had taken and which level the members had reached within the society. Father says that the Andromeda rota is terribly small now. One way or the other they lost dozens of members these last two years."

"Can the Andromeda society take on new members right now though? Considering everything, I mean, and especially since they don't have a building anymore."

Gwen shrugged her shoulders eloquently and finished chewing the mouthful of toast that she had just crammed in her mouth.

Ginny, who had appeared to be entirely absorbed with reading the spiky, scribbly handwriting that covered the front and back of a very long owl parchment and therefore ignoring the conversation and food on the table entirely, muttered irritatedly, "Well you don't think that the members of the almighty Andromeda society are going to be without a suitable building for long, do you Elisabeth? They've some very wealthy members still, since I don't think all of that lot were killed off during the war."

After a quick glance at Gwen, Elisabeth replied with feeling, "No they weren't either, which you know quite well since Gwen's step-father is quite definitely alive, anyway so is your brother."

Ginny lifted her eyes with surprise and glared at her friend, "None of my brothers belong to Andromeda, Elisabeth. I don't know what you mean. They wouldn't take a Weasley into membership even if we came two for one with a pound of tea and a year's supply of newt's eyes."

Elisabeth started to speak, but was restrained by Gwen's hand on her wrist. Gwen looked inquiringly at Ginny and asked quietly, "Do you really not know that one of your brothers is a member, Ginny? He is, you know, Bill I mean."

"No, he isn't. He wouldn't. Even if he would then they wouldn't have him. Not now, especially." Ginny's voice was harsh as she responded whilst her fingers began to slowly, deliberately roll up the owl that she had been so carefully reading.

Gwen looked quickly round them and, once satisfied that no one was listening to their conversation, she leaned forward and spoke in a low, urgent voice, "Bill _is_ a member. Father mentioned it to me years ago when he heard that I was friendly with a Weasley at school. I don't know anything more than that, actually. I'm not sure why you think it is something shameful, Ginny."

Ginny almost bared her teeth as she snatched up her bag, into which she had stuffed the rolled parchment, and stood up to leave. "I don't want to talk about it. I am going to start my essay for Runes. Are you two coming?"

Elisabeth looked at Gwen to take her cue. She immediately recognised the look on her friend's face and bit her lip nervously. "I-I don't think so, Ginny. I think we'll just, we'll just finish eating."

Ginny did not wait for Gwen's response, but turned on her heel and stalked from the hall.

"Don't ask me about it, Elisabeth, because I have no idea. Let her work it out on her own. It's better not to press Ginny when she is angry."

"It was an owl from Harry."

"Of course, and I think it wasn't all good news either. But that isn't what was going on just there. I really don't know what that was."

"Wasn't Bill a curse breaker once?"

"Yes, I think so, though that could have been another brother."

"Well a curse breaker, that's almost bound to be a warlock, isn't it?"

"Oh Bill Weasley is blatantly a warlock, Elisabeth. So is her Harry, of course."

"She has to know it."

"Of course she does. There isn't anything disgraceful in being a warlock anymore than there is in being pureblood. It is just that a high percentage of both old purebloods and warlocks chose the losing side of the war."

"Or skirted the line."

"Oh most of the rest skirted the line, Elisabeth. My family are champion line-skirters. Why else do you think that Father has finally agreed to live in the Morbihan for a while?"

"Oh. I thought it was because of the treatments. Is there another investigation?"

"Well I don't think that they really ever closed the last investigation."

"Oh."

Gwen smiled with amusement at her friend and then said with a sigh, "Darling, don't look so shocked. Father helped the Ministry and did his part, but that doesn't mean that he actually likes most of them or is even marginally polite to them. There is bound to be an investigation, but there won't really be any trouble. When things are calmer in a few months he can come back to Wales in the wake of a large gift to St Mungo's or something else very philanthropic and public."

"But if he helped the Ministry why would he have to hide in France?"

"He isn't hiding, Elisabeth. The Central Ministry knows exactly where Mother is anyway and she is rarely more than a few metres away from him. But if the Ministry of Magic is looking for wizards and witches to make public examples of then why should Father wait about to be chosen?"

"I suppose that makes sense."

"Of course it…"

As Gwen's voice drifted off absently, Elisabeth looked in the same direction as her friend and saw that Anselm Becker had begun to walk towards their end of the table. Elisabeth whispered quickly, "I thought you didn't like him any longer."

Gwen whispered out of the corner of her mouth, "I don't!"

Both girls waited as the tall, dark haired Hufflepuff stopped next to them and asked with only a mild accent to betray his country of birth, "You will ask your friend Weasley if the Gryffindor team is willing to play us on Thursday?"

Gwen, who had picked up her school bag from the floor and stood up quickly at Anselm's arrival, leant her head slightly to the side and appeared to consider Becker's request. "Probably not, but if you find your manners somewhere then I might consider it."

Elisabeth, who had clearly bristled at Becker's rudeness, tried to stifle a snort of laughter as she allowed Gwen to link arms with her. However, when she saw the confused, angry look on Anselm Becker's face in response to Gwen's statement, Elisabeth said pleasingly, "In any case, I know that Ginny is busy on Thursday evening, so I doubt the team would want to play."

"Ah, perhaps I will talk to Weasley myself. Where is she?"

Before Gwen could respond, Elisabeth quickly said, "She is in the library, I think."

Becker nodded curtly, sharply thanked Elisabeth, and turned on his heel to walk away from the table. When he was far enough away Elisabeth let out the breath that she had been holding and asked pensively, "However did you come to like him?"

Gwen shrugged her shoulders and said only, "He looks amazing on the quidditch pitch."

"You would never know his mother was English. I think Cassiopeia was right about him."

"Yes." Gwen sighed and seemed to think for a moment before suddenly smiling. "It doesn't matter anymore." Her face took on a very self-important, serious expression as she asked stiffly, "You vill accompany me to ze common room?"

Elisabeth giggled and hooked her school bag over her shoulder to leave.

* * *

"Where's Gwen?" 

Elisabeth jumped in shock at unexpectedly hearing Ginny's voice behind her. As she pulled out her wand to erase the resulting ink blot from her parchment she replied, "She said that she was going to Duelling Club, did they change the meeting?"

Ginny's face registered first surprise, then annoyance as she sank onto the chair next to Elisabeth. "I'd forgot that it was Wednesday. It doesn't matter really; I'm too tired to duel anyway. Besides, there are only four of us who are any good at all. It's more teaching than practising."

Elisabeth began biting her fingernail as she watched Ginny arrange her books on the table in front of them. As Ginny bent down to her bag to pull out a third volume of the Eastern Runic Syllabillary, Elisabeth asked uncertainly, "Are you two still rowing?"

"Not really. We're just not talking much. I think we're just tired of each other right now."

Elisabeth nodded and picked her quill up again to finish work on her own Runes essay.

"Do you get tired of being in the middle of Gwen and me? Sometimes I think that Gwen would prefer it just be you two again, like it was most of the first five years. I sort of took over your friendship."

Elisabeth did not respond for a moment as she carefully set down her quill and closed her book. "Well, you did rather. It is true that you used to pay more attention to what your brother's friends were doing or to your boyfriend than you did to either of us or that Ravenclaw girl. It _was_ odd at first when you began sitting with us all the time, but I've known you for 15 years, Ginny, and Gwen would welcome any friend of mine without thought. We like having you as a closer friend now, both of us do. But I do think that Gwen wonders if you really like her or if you just accept her because she's my friend."

Ginny sighed and said softly, "She's very hard to get to know, Elisabeth."

Elisabeth nodded her head before responding uncomfortably, "I know. She is always four steps ahead of me. She's already finished that logic puzzle."

"She's finished?"

"Yeah, she did it last night. I only got as far as the second supposition."

"Show me what you have. I have half of it done. We might as well finish it now. Runes isn't going anywhere."

"Let me see if I brought the parchment with me. Oh, did you hear back from your application yet?"

"No. I don't suppose that I will for another month or two. Have you made a decision yet?"

Elisabeth pulled out another parchment and opened it enough to read what was on it and tossed it onto the table and reached into her bag for another one. "Well the only subject I am really decent at is arithmancy, so what choice is there? Uncle Ian wants me for the firm and there's good security in that. I'd be working on growth predictions, which I can do in my sleep, so that should be fine."

"What happened to all your ideas of travelling and working consultancy?"

"A long, serious talk during the hols with my brother about reality. He's a bore, but Stephen knows what he is talking about. I've already told Uncle Ian that I'll go into the firm next September."

"Oh. Well, if you're happy about it then that's wonderful."

Elisabeth handed the parchment with the logic puzzle on it to Ginny and began to place the other unwanted parchments back in her bag. "I'm not unhappy. It will be a good, secure position and better than the Ministry, which is the only other secure choice for an arithmancy specialist."

Ginny nodded. "I wouldn't take a Ministry job right now, and I can't really think of travelling either. Mum can hardly bear my remaining at Hogwarts. Did you hear that William Mac…." Ginny broke off her question as a short, plump boy with white blond hair had stopped purposefully beside Elisabeth and appeared to be trying to gather courage to ask a question. "Hello, Edwin."

The boy stammered a nervous, "H-hello, Ginny. Hello, Elisabeth," and then looked away from Ginny and concentrated on Elisabeth as he tried to form a question, "D-do you know where…" The boy's face was a very bright red as he raised a slightly sweaty hand to his face and wiped his mouth before continuing, "…Gwen is, Elisabeth?"

Elisabeth looked quickly at Ginny and then replied, "She had a club meeting, Edwin. Did you want me to tell her that you are looking for her?"

The young man looked startled and shook his head vigorously as he said, "N-no, I…I wouldn't want to bother her. I'll just t-try to talk to her later. Thanks."

"Alright, Edwin." Elisabeth turned back to Ginny with a look of extreme pity on her face and saw that Ginny was shaking her head as she watched Edwin Sorrel walk away from the table.

"Has he ever actually spoken to her?"

"No. He has several times stopped in the corridor and opened his mouth as if he was going to say something, but he always panics and runs away."

"He wouldn't dare to speak to her if he ever heard what she thinks of him."

Elisabeth frowned slightly, "She wouldn't be cruel to him, Ginny."

"No, but she thinks he is pathetic. You know what her ideal wizard is like. 'Real wizards wouldn't let a witch get away if they were really in love. Real wizards would _do_ something.' Edwin doesn't do anything but stammer and sweat."

Elisabeth sighed, "Well it _is_ a little pathetic that he hasn't spoken to her yet. It is seventh year and he's been like this since at least the end of second year."

Ginny, with her own knowledge of how painful and consuming such a crush could be, replied, "Has she ever spoken to him, Elisabeth? She could make it easier for him so he could learn to get past it. He isn't a bad sort, you know. It would be better if she made her own feelings quite clear."

Elisabeth shook her head. "That would be crueller, I think. The end of the year will come and Gwen will be sent to Brittany and Edwin won't have any more opportunity to worship her so he'll move on and grow up."

"So she is being sent to Brittany for certain?"

"No question about it. Her parents will take her directly there from Hogwarts. Her mother's brother has been in negotiations with several families about possible suitors."

"I had hoped her step-father would put his foot down. He adores her, doesn't he?"

"Completely, but she won't dare oppose her mother so he probably doesn't realise how unhappy she is. He doesn't pay much attention to anything outside of his books unless something is specifically brought to his attention. Anyway I think that they made some sort of agreement when they married that Gwen would be raised according to Breton traditions."

"I can't imagine if my family chose who I had to marry."

"Yes you can because they'd choose Harry anyway. You are lucky."


	3. Chapter 3

He stood very still in front of the small wooden mirror and stared intently at his reflection. The person who had looked out from the mirror for almost thirty years had once been someone that he could recognise. Pale freckled skin, wide blue eyes, slightly long nose, and very red hair – he had always known who he was and once it had made him smile to think how the close family bonds extended even to physical characteristics.

Bill turned his face away from the mirror and leant against the old chest of drawers with a grunt of exhaustion. He had no desire to continue to live as he had for the last year. He did not want to completely give up on what had once been a promising future. His sanity had been tenuous for a few months after losing his wife and brothers, but at least he no longer had trouble with differentiating reality from fiction. He had not lost his entire family and those that remained were closer than ever before. There was a life for him if he wanted it.

As he drifted towards the large walnut wardrobe in the corner of the room, avoiding the large gilded mirror on the far wall, Bill rubbed the sore place on his chest that was still covered with protective gauze. Kent had probably been right that it would be a mistake to have a rune that personal and not practical, but it was already done and the spell was permanent. Collecting a cloak and his favourite boots from the wardrobe, Bill sat on the edge of the bed and breathed out a long sigh of fatigue.

* * *

"Your hair looks fine, Gwen, honestly. How many times do you need to brush it up? We're going to miss the coaches if we don't hurry." 

Without even turning around to respond to Ginny, Gwen moved nearer to the mirror and smoothed down the sides of her hair, which had been twisted and braided into a complex, traditional style. As Gwen raised her wand and spoke aloud the hair-fixing charm, Elisabeth turned her head and answered Ginny testily, "We have at least 10 minutes, Ginny. Do you think that I should change my jumper? Don't you think that the green one would look better?"

Ginny flopped down on the edge of Elisabeth's bed and twirled her wand absently as she responded, "No, not green. Thomas was a Ravenclaw, so he'll like the blue anyway."

Elisabeth nudged Gwen away from the mirror and turned around nervously to check her outfit again. Gwen shrugged her shoulders and seconded Ginny's statement, "You look heaps better in blue, darling. Where is Thomas meeting you?"

"Right where the stagecoaches leave us. He is afraid for me to walk round Hogsmeade without him. He swears that the aurors arrested someone by mistake last week."

Both Gwen and Ginny snorted with laughter and Ginny asked teasingly, "How does he think he is going to protect you - is he going to duel with an auror?"

Elisabeth's cheeks turned slightly pink as she fastened her cloak round her shoulders. "I think it's sort of sweet."

Gwen added knowingly, "More likely it's because he knows he has a rival."

Elisabeth stalked to the door and with a very red face said only, "I don't know what you mean. Hurry up, let's go."

Both of her friends followed her as she rushed out of the dormitory and through the common room to the portrait hole. As they got to the bottom of the stairs they began to run through the hall as they could see that there were only a few first year students to be seen. "Did we miss them? They haven't left, have they," Elisabeth asked in a panicked voice.

Ginny stopped short as they exited the front doors when she saw the line of filled stagecoaches outside the gates. "Hardly. They're still queuing to get in the last few. We'd better try for the last one."

Gwen tapped Elisabeth on the back with the tip of a dark rosewood wand and performed a warming spell on her and then repeated the spell on herself as she asked, "You want one, Ginny?"

"Yeah, might as well. How do you get yours to last so long?"

Gwen tapped Ginny's back and spoke several strange words aloud and then answered, "It is a Breton spell. They use a slightly different focus than either the standard Hogwarts or the colloquial English versions. You can't do it if you don't speak _Brezhoneg_, though. You have to _mean_ the words."

Elisabeth climbed into the coach first and then Ginny stepped in. After they had both entered they gave their hands to Gwen and pulled her up so that she could climb inside. Ginny leant back in her seat and said in a sing-song voice, "If we had gotten here earlier we could have gotten into one of the two coaches with the low stairs."

Gwen made a face at Ginny and did not answer. She tucked her hands under her cloak and waited for Elisabeth's usual joke about short, French witches. When Elisabeth didn't speak, Gwen turned her head and asked, "Are you really that nervous, Elisabeth? You look perfect. You know Thomas will fall all over himself trying to please you."

Ginny slid closer to where Elisabeth was sitting and patted her hand, "Is it about Aurelius?"

"I told him that I don't want him to talk to me anymore. I meant it when I told him, but now I'm not so sure. What if I'm making a mistake? Thomas is so sure and steady and all of those things, but Aurelius is just so much fun. If only he weren't so irresponsible."

Gwen looked Elisabeth in the eye and said gently, "But he is, dear. He is loads of fun, yet he wants everyone else to do his work for him. You've said it before that he never knew how to be there for you, but that Thomas always knows just what to do."

Ginny nodded vigorously and added, "Which bloke really makes you happy?"

Elisabeth shook her head and murmured unhappily, "I don't know. I really _don't_ know. I should just make a decision and stay with it, but even though I think Thomas is the right one I still wish it were Aurelius."

Gwen and Ginny both nodded and Gwen held out her handkerchief to Elisabeth, who took it quickly and began to blot her face. Elisabeth blatantly changed the subject asking, "Is it just Bill who is meeting you there?"

Ginny sighed and responded carefully, "Yes. Bill is going to meet both of us at the Horn-tailed Dragon. He is going to stand us some lunch and then take us to purchase some more potions supplies for our special projects. He got a temporary permit for limited Epidex level supplies, since Gwen needs Eustacian Ieucharia leaves and I need Uralic webworms."

"Oh that's lucky. You should have told Cassiopeia that you could purchase Epidex level, because she's desperate to get some Jaune Fleur Ouvrant Oxalis."

"Well we can't just purchase anything. It's a limited permit for only the Ieucharia and the webworms."

"I see. That's nice of Bill though. My brother wouldn't come all the way down to Hogsmeade just to get me some supplies."

Ginny shrugged and said, "Bill is just like that."

All three girls suddenly clung to the handles on the inside of the door as the stagecoach lurched to a sudden stop. Ginny rubbed her shoulder, which had jammed into Elisabeth's side and asked, "Ugh, why do we always get the thestral who can't brake properly?"

Elisabeth giggled and quickly opened the door and hopped out of the stagecoach. Ginny also jumped out and waited for Gwen to grab her hand before helping Gwen down. Ginny patted Gwen's head, saying, "Midget," and then, after receiving an unimpressed glare from Gwen, turned to watch with amusement as Elisabeth raced over to where Thomas Dowdie was standing. "I don't think that there is any real question, do you?"

Gwen followed Ginny's gaze and agreed, "No, I think it will be Thomas. Aurelius Beaucharme was exciting. He is from an old family and is one of the best beaters that Slytherin has produced in a decade. He'll be a brilliant professional quidditch player, but he made a horrid boyfriend. She knows it, too."

Ginny linked her arm with Gwen's and added, "At least he knows what he's lost."

"Well how could he not know? He likes brunettes and she's one of the prettiest brunettes in our year, don't you think?"

"Well Thomas Dowdie certainly agrees with you."

"Yes he does. I hope your brother doesn't mind, but I'm going to eat my way through three lunches, I think."

"He won't care. He eats enough for four wizards. Except…did I tell you that he is sort of funny about his meat?"

"No. What do you mean?"

"He won't eat it if they've cooked it too far."

"Well that isn't so odd. You English seem to think that you need to cook your beef until it falls apart. It is disgusting."

Ginny's face twitched suddenly and she looked almost as if she had hurt herself for a moment. "Yes, I have heard that said before."

Gwen understood that she had said something wrong, but knew that it was better not to ask about it, so the two friends walked up the Hogsmeade High Street in silence. As they walked past what a charred and crooked sign declared had once been the location of Zacarias' Zapateria, both girls huddled a little closer to one another. When they passed another deserted storefront with boarded windows covered with Wanted posters, they saw a pair of aurors walking towards them on patrol. Gwen averted her eyes as they hurried past the couple, one of which was a girl that she had vaguely known at school. She had heard that Mildred had married Ereban the month after they had left school, which had been fortunate since Ereban had been killed only a few weeks after the wedding. Gwen thought unhappily that at least Mildred had gotten a few weeks with him before she had lost him. Too many young witches and wizards had rushed to marry out of fear that there was not enough time to wait. Far too often they had been proved right.

Gwen looked at her friend surreptitiously and considered Ginny's family. One Weasley brother had lost his wife and another had been killed, leaving a widow. Neither marriage had lasted more than four months. Gwen could not keep her mind from thinking how incredibly different Ginny's and Elisabeth's families were from her own. Of course English law was different, too. Ginny could even marry a muggle if she wanted and her family would have no recourse. Gwen felt a twinge of anger and frustration as they approached the door to the Horntailed Dragon.

"Bill said he'd wait at one of the back tables."

The door was opened by a short, Hungarian wizard wearing a bright green hat, who gestured that they should enter ahead of him. Both girls thanked him and quickly slipped inside out of the high wind and cold. Almost immediately Gwen saw a wizard in the far back left with the right shade of red hair. "Right, isn't that he?"

Ginny craned her neck to the side to peer in the direction that Gwen had nodded. "Yeah, come on."

Gwen followed Ginny back to the table and watched as Bill Weasley sharply stood up and pulled out the chair next to him for his sister and moved to pull the one across from him out for Gwen.

"Hi Gin. Hello again Miss Gurley. You two look cold."

Ginny jumped up to hug her brother's neck and said with a laugh, "That is because the wind was practically blowing us down outside."

Bill slid Gwen's chair in after she sat and then waited for Ginny to sit before he did the same for her. As Bill settled into his own chair, steadily regarding the menu in front of him, he heard both his sister and her friend speaking. Ginny asked nervously, "Did Harry give anything to you?" as Gwen very quietly said, "Please do call me Gwenaëlle. Ginny's one of my best friends. We needn't stand on ceremony if you like."

Bill smiled in response to Gwen and nodded as he pulled something out of his pocket. "You wouldn't be asking about this, I suppose, Gin?"

Ginny squealed with delight, "Thank goodness. He promised he'd get it for me. Professor Amitra will be too impressed that I've got a copy."

Gwen, who knew all about the little book that Ginny had browbeat Harry Potter into procuring for her from unnamed sources, merely smiled shyly at Bill and perused a list of very English food and tried to make a selection. "Thank you for offering to help us with the Epidex supplies, Mr Weasley. That's incredibly kind of you."

Bill, with an affectionate side glance at his sister, who was flipping excitedly through the little white book that he had handed her, said seriously, "It's Bill and you're welcome. I had to wheedle an uncle into getting my seventh year project supplies. Mum wouldn't let Dad buy them for me because she was too sure I'd blow myself up."

Gwen nodded and added, "My mother doesn't think that NEWT level potions is very appropriate for a young witch and it was only through my step-father's intervention that I even took the class this year or last year. I didn't dare ask my family for help with my project."

Ginny looked up from her book and said, "They're not at all interested in her education."

Bill looked quite surprised, since his former experience with French Wizarding families was quite contrary. Fleur's family had been extremely vocal about equity in education for witches. Even the oldest French families usually insisted that the witches in their families were educated at least as well as the wizards of lesser families.

Gwen coloured slightly as she reproved her friend, "They are interested, Ginny. My mother merely holds very traditional Breton ideas about which subjects are appropriate for me to learn."

Bill looked up from his menu sharply and then quickly down again. She was Breton. That explained…actually that explained almost everything. If even half the stories were true that he had heard about Breton wizardry and the truly archaic traditions that surrounded a very old culture and protected the secrets of some very ancient magic, then Bill was amazed that Gwen had even been allowed to study at Hogwarts. He knew that her mother had remarried shortly after being widowed, but how had Gwen's real father's family been willing to allow their daughter to be educated in the midst of English culture? The Breton were viciously xenophobic, even to 'lesser' French regions.

"Well they aren't concerned about what you want to learn anyway, Gwen. Is anything good here, Bill?"

Bill, who had dropped the menu on the table, said only, "The beef is very rare," and gazed around the restaurant looking for the waitress, who seemed to be somewhat uninterested in serving their table.


	4. Chapter 4

As he pushed his way through the crowd in the smoke filled taproom of the Three Sisters, Bill felt his pocket to make certain that both his silver case and his moneybag were safe. He nudged past a particularly disreputable looking warlock, who he had met under rather unfortunate circumstances at least once before, and looked towards the large table at the back where his friends usually gathered. Bill noticed with relief that at least two of his mates were already there and that there was an unattended mug of red bitters next to his friend, Anders.

As he walked up to the table with a slight feeling of trepidation, he heard a deep voice call out, "Well, well, well, if it isn't old Long-lost Weasley."

As Bill smiled uncomfortably at Anders, the short, stocky man sitting next to Anders shouted, "Oi! Weasley! How's it going, mate?"

Bill greeted them both and dropped into the chair next to Anders with a grunt of exhaustion. "Who else is here?"

Anders ran a thin, scarred hand through his longish black hair and said derisively, "Ask Oakley."

Bill smiled slowly and returned a meaningful look with Anders before saying, "It's like that is it? Who is she?"

Oakley looked towards the direction of the witches' toilets and muttered, "I can always count on you lot to be supportive. Thanks. Her name's Sheila and you'd better not do any of your funny stuff, Weasley. I like this one and I don't need her knowing about what we did in school."

Bill raised one eyebrow and looked at Anders, who was blatantly thinking through various anecdotes for the best candidate, and allowed a deep laugh to spring forth as he warned his friend, "Don't put a challenge to Anders, you daft idiot. Look at him."

Oakley, who now looked positively grey from nerves, stammered, "C-come on, mates. Give a chap a break."

Bill peered at Anders and shook his head, "Not the hair-on-fire one, that wasn't actually his fault." Anders nodded in agreement and started to open his mouth when Bill said approvingly, "Yes, that one. The Amazing, Bouncing…."

Oakley moaned, "Noooo."

Anders snorted and said, "Cor, did you ever know a bloke who was easier to wind up? Of course we're not going to do anything to upset Sheila. Are we Weasley?"

Bill shook his head soberly and asked, "Is this she?"

Oakley turned around in his chair and sang out, "Sheila! You're back. I want you to meet one of my good mates from school. This is Bill Weasley."

The dark haired young witch extended a strong hand to Bill and said, "Pleased to meet you. I've read about you, of course."

Bill smiled politely and waited until the witch had sat down before he hastily gestured to a waitress and dropped back into a chair. After a few uncomfortable moments in which no one spoke, Bill asked, "What is it that you do, er, Miss…?"

The woman laughed and, with a slightly aggressive voice, commanded, "Call me Sheila. Everyone does. I'm in magical beast control. Private work, of course. Mostly a lot of jobs with garden gnome removals or doxy infestations, but occasionally an interesting one, such as the job of manticore repellence charms for the Irish Ministry that I did last year. Very satisfying work and frequently challenging, despite what you might think."

Slightly taken aback, Bill blinked at the woman whom Oakley was now kissing on the cheek and searched for a polite response, but it proved unnecessary. The witch raised her hand to Oakley's cheek and said in a sugary tone, "I think it's time to go Johnnie. I've promised my sister that we wouldn't be late."

Bill watched his friend stammer with confusion and say, "Oh. Right, right. Sorry mates. Eh, I'll see you later in the week, I expect. Good to see you again, Bill. Glad you could meet Sheila."

Bill caught the fleeting look that Sheila cast upon him and felt his stomach turn slightly. Both he and Anders stood watching their friend and his witch leave the pub before they turned to each other and shook their heads simultaneously.

"She's cooked her own goose."

"Has she? He looked happy enough."

Anders made a face at the mug of red bitters, as if its purchaser might suddenly reappear, and said, "When she explains to him why they _really_ left then he'll nip that relationship in the bud. Poor sod."

Bill nodded and after a moment asked, "How have you been?"

At that moment the waitress arrived and asked, "Another round?"

Anders shook his head. Pointing to the two mugs on the table, he said, "That lot's gone, but I'd like another and Weasley here would like a strong Bloodwhisky - unless today is a day for black aquavit, Bill?" Bill grunted a response that Anders understood to be a negative and the waitress left them and went to fill their orders. Anders drained the last mouthful in his own mug and squinted at his friend. "I'm alright. Don't have much time for anything outside of work these days. Angela's fed up. She hasn't set an ultimatum yet only because she still thinks I'm some sort of bloody hero – Senior Auror for Escaped Convicts. All that means is that I'm minced meat if we don't get the bleeding Tavoillot brothers and soon."

" Kent no longer cooperating? I thought he'd fed you a lead. In fact I know he did because he wasn't very pleased last time I saw him - now that you've got Lefevre."

Anders shrugged his shoulders and answered, "No, he'll cooperate as long as we keep our end of the bargain. There isn't any direct proof on Dalgliesh and unless something falls at our feet we aren't looking for anything. So if Dalgliesh is safe and we don't even look in the same vicinity as Kent's little sister then Kent will pass on any information that he hears."

Bill asked seriously, "Any information or just any information that he _hears_?"

Anders laughed. "It only takes once to fall into that trap to learn my lesson, Bill. Shipley was a slippery little bastard and he's the jurisconsultant to half the wizards that we are looking for. I carefully worded the agreement this time. Any information pertaining to the location of the Tavoillot brothers that Kent receives through any method is to be passed on to Magical Law Enforcement within 3 hours of receipt. That reminds me. Your tip about Sellers was a success. He had a cupboard hidden just how you'd thought."

The waitress set a glass filled with a dark red liquid in front of Bill and a full mug next to Anders' hand and cleared the empties as Bill responded cryptically, "Industry standard spell."

"I'd assumed as much, though concealment charms are really your specialty, aren't they? Despite the fact that we are fairly confident that Dalgliesh was responsible for the slaughter of those two families in Hampshire, my superiors were far more willing to let us give up Dalgliesh to Kent than Kent's sister. I have never seen a sillier witch than Patience Snape and if she had any useful information then Kent would know it. He is so desperate to protect her that he would have told us anything he knows. I don't know what they believe they could accomplish from another interview with one of the dimmest Hufflepuffs I've ever interrogated."

Bill pursed his lips and after a moment replied, "There was something there in that marriage, Anders. His love for her was desperately real. She can't be as stupid as we think."

Anders' lip curled unpleasantly as he responded scathingly, "She is an incredibly beautiful witch. It doesn't take any imagination at all to understand her appeal to him."

Bill seemed to focus on a point far behind Anders' head as he considered something privately for several moments. Finally he said, "You might be right, of course. That is certainly the public opinion. In any case, I don't think that Snape would have dared to entrust any information with her either way. Even if he trusted her then he would not have risked putting her in danger. She is of no further use to you, I think."

Anders snorted as he set down his almost empty mug of beer. " Kent, however, is far more useful. He has a beloved sister to protect, a wife who seems to want to protect his sister almost as much as he does, a successful business which must keep Ministry approval in order to remain open, and a childhood friend for whom he seems to be willing to do quite a lot. Kent will do what we want, I think. Especially since his affiliations make him somewhat suspect, as well."

Bill's eyes narrowed slightly, but he merely said, "Be careful, Anders. Kent and his friends will only help you as long as you are useful to them. If they find someone else who can offer them a better deal then they will take it without compunction. You can't actually trust him for the long term."

Anders nodded. "I understand. I don't think even Kent's wife fully trusts him. I know what he is."

Bill leaned back into his chair and stretched his legs out in front of him. Anders watched with amusement as Bill suddenly lifted his glass to his mouth and finished it off in one long draught. Bill slapped the glass back onto the table and smiled slightly as he asked, "McGruder coming tonight?"

"Probably. Surprised to see you, Bill. Glad though. Who is she?"

Bill raised his eyebrows in response and reached into his pocket. As he drew out a slim silver case he answered, "Problem is, I've known you too long, haven't I?"

Anders nodded and took the proffered case, flipping open the lid and dropping a pinch of silvery, dried needle-like herbs onto the surface. "Since first day of first year. You have that look. So let's have it." When Anders had finished with the case he handed it back to Bill, who then dropped a large pile of dried needles onto the surface. "Steady on, Bill."

Bill didn't respond until he'd placed the case back into his pocket. "That great uncle who always sent you the books on defensive magic, where was he from?"

" France, you know that. Why?"

"I meant which region?"

"Ah, I see. Brittany. That's why my mother was always afraid of him and convinced that he'd turn me to dark magic."

"I thought he was."

"Good, holy Mother. Don't tell me that you've chosen a Breton witch, Bill. Are you fond of being miserable?"

"Not particularly fond of it, no. I didn't know she was Breton."

"Well at least she doesn't wear the cap and apron then, apparently. I'm serious, mate. You're buggered."

"I know it."

"Are you serious about this, Bill?"

"Yes. I don't find it particularly amusing either, _Gricius_."

Anders choked on the mouthful of beer that he had just taken and glared at Bill. "Right, we've talked about that. Use that name and I pound you. Sorted?"

Bill shrugged, "If you think you can take me on, _Gricius_."

Anders clenched his fist and replied, "I still say that my father must have been under a Confundus charm when he named me, but don't change the subject. If you are serious then I'm on it. What do you want me to get Uncle Astaric to do?"

"I need to know what I'm up against. Am I even allowed to speak to her without parental permission? Because I have a feeling that I'm not. I went through formal negotiations with…for Fleur, but those were just a formality for tradition. From what I understand these Breton families are serious."

"Deadly serious, Bill. How far are you willing to take this thing?"

Bill frowned. "I don't really know. I haven't spent a lot of time with her, but it was instantaneous."

"Like before?"

"Not exactly, but the effect is the same. I know what I want, but I don't really know what I would be getting or even what she thinks."

"You mean you don't even know if she is interested."

"Right. She's young."

"How young?"

Bill's brows pulled together as he tersely replied, "Eighteen." His fingers tightened round his glass, which had just been placed on the table by the waitress. He didn't look up for several moments, but considered the blood red liquid in front of him.

Anders was watching his friend with a look of deep concern written on his face as he sighed and commented, "You must be very serious then. Look, I know a little bit about what you want to know, actually. I do know that she is the legal property of her family until marriage when 'guardianship' passes to the husband. Therefore anything she does has to be approved by the parents or else they can impose punishment, such as a complete wand restriction. I know that marriage to a muggle would result in a complete loss of magical rights inside France. I don't know what would happen to her if she married a wizard without complete familial approval."

"That is about what I expected."

Anders began to speak, but then said quickly, "Oakley."

Bill turned around and saw Oakley hurrying to their table. "I'm glad you two are still here. Look, Bill, I am sorry about before. I had no idea what she was on about. I thought perhaps I'd forgotten we were going to dinner at her sister's."

Anders patted the back of Oakley's old chair and said, "Not your fault, John."

Oakley refused to sit and fixed an earnest expression on Bill's frowning face. "Are we alright, mate?"

Bill looked surprised and answered solemnly, "Of course, John. I don't blame you. Most of the Wizarding world is still afraid that I'm contagious."

Oakley dropped into the chair and said with feeling, "Idiots do, you mean. Thanks, Bill. Let me buy the next round then."

* * *

"There isn't any real choice, Elisabeth. You know what my mother is like when she has decreed something. She has decided that to bring Father into Britain is tantamount to committing him to either death from the effects of the curse or a sentence in Azkaban. She is absolutely sure that the Undersecretary cannot resist the temptation to exact revenge for some of the comments that Father has made about him over the years."

Elisabeth groaned, "That sounds _exactly_ like her. But would it really hurt to ask? My mother has told me that she would be too happy to write a formal request for visit to your mother. She knows how much I long to have you come and if you tell me what all the polite things to say in Brittany are then she'll say them and I'm sure your mother can't refuse then."

Gwen's expression seemed to look slightly more hopeful as she replied, "Well, your family is the sort that Mother generally approves. She won't want to antagonise any of the right sort in Britain for Father's sake. If your mother writes a terribly formal sort of letter then Mother might feel obliged to accept."

Elisabeth hopped up onto her knees from where she had been perching on the bed. "Oh, I know it will work! Then we'll have the whole break together to do whatever we want. I don't know how many more chances like this we'll have, since you'll be practically imprisoned in your uncle's home once you leave Hogwarts after NEWTs."

Gwen automatically reproved her friend as she was searching in her trunk for a sheet of clean, blue parchment. "I am not being imprisoned. It is merely more appropriate for me to live in my uncle's house, since he is conducting the negotiations."

Elisabeth bit her lip so as to keep from speaking her opinion aloud. She watched as Gwen carefully lifted a curtain of shiny, jet black hair so she wouldn't sit on it before settling on the floor in front of Cassiopeia's trunk. Gwen placed the parchment on the top of the trunk and asked, "Hand me my quill please?" Elisabeth snatched up a long pink quill and a crystal phial filled with violet ink from the top of Gwen's school bag and moved to the floor beside her. As Gwen smoothed out the parchment and prepared to write, Elisabeth asked excitedly, "Right, so what does Mum need to write?"


	5. Chapter 5

I've just realised I forgot my disclaimer: I have absolutely no affiliation with Ms. Rowling, Bloomsbury, Warner Brothers, or Scholastic. There is no financial profit being made from this story.

In response to some questions: Sand needle inhalation (in addition to the characters Aldebaran Shipley, Luther Kent, Mark Dalgliesh, etc) is an invention of mine from my other two stories. It is rather like a cross between Wizarding snuff and cigarettes but with a somewhat 'dangerous' reputation. It has the effect of calming emotions, for which it is chiefly used by (1) wizards whose emotions/consciences might otherwise impede them from being involved with the darker brands of magic or (2) wizards who have done and/or witnessed more than they wish to remember (sadly becoming more common). Hence the risque associations. It is quite legal, but not encouraged socially - a sand needle user would be viewed rather like a serious chain smoker.

* * *

"Your mother is very concerned about you, son."

Bill lifted his eyes with surprise from the small grove of trees at which he had been staring for the last ten minutes. Moving over slightly so that his father could join him, Bill said gruffly, "I know she is."

"Should I be concerned too, Bill?"

Bill shook his head and ran one freckled hand though his hair. After a moment he said, "No, I can do this or not by myself. I think that I have to."

Arthur Weasley's face fell. "I see. You know, it is alright to ask for help sometimes, son. I know that you loved her, Bill, but you are allowed to have another chance."

Bill's expression was slightly angry for a moment and then he laughed shortly. "You are the second person in 24 hours to tell me that I am incredibly obvious."

Arthur placed a hand briefly on his son's shoulder as he answered, "I have watched six sons tumble in and out of love, Bill. You have each been different, but I am familiar with the signs by now. I remember Anastasia Huxley and I remember Estelle Charmwood and I especially remember the hopeless look you wore for weeks before you finally took Fleur to dinner the first time."

Bill's face scrunched up in an expression of wordless pain and he looked away towards the grove of trees again. He stared away from his father until finally he said, "She once asked me what I would do if something happened to her. I tried to refuse to answer, but she got insistent. You know how she could be. I finally admitted that I couldn't imagine doing _anything_ if she died. But she told me that was ridiculous and that naturally she would marry someone else very quickly if I was to die."

Arthur watched his son in silence as Bill stood up and continued to stare into the dark circle beyond the trees. Bill raised his wand and absently shot a bolt of golden light in between the two trees in front of him. "I told her that was what I would want, of course. She told me that she knew it, since I would never want her to be lonely. I was furious with her at the time, hating the idea of her remarrying and all the same knowing how unreasonable it was to expect anything else. Of course I didn't realise until the next morning that she was actually trying to tell me not to give up if something happened to her. How did she know what was going to happen?"

Arthur waited a moment before answering, "She merely knew what the risks were for both of you. I don't think she was aware what would actually happen, but she knew you well enough to understand that you needed to be reassured that she would want you to move on."

"I know and she was right. She always was right about me."

Arthur waited quietly for his son, who was continuing to send short bursts of golden light arcing into the grove. Bill finally slumped against the large gnarled tree at the opening of the circle and stared into the dark silence.

"Would you tell Mum that I am fine? Ask her to hold out some of the pudding for me."

Arthur stood up from the small stone bench and replied, "I will, but of course she'll have already done so."

"Yes, but she likes when I ask for some." Bill turned round to face his father and Arthur could see that his son's expression was very calm and determined. "I'll escort Ginny into Scotland next week. Mum won't worry about her as much if I'm with her and I have something I want to do."

Arthur nodded and watched as Bill marched away from him into the grove towards the row of small white headstones.

* * *

"You are very accommodating recently, Bill."

"Mm? Would you rather I wasn't?"

Ginny shrugged her shoulders, "No, it has been nice to have you about more."

Bill smiled fondly at Ginny and then turned back to watch where they were walking. "You haven't been talking as much to me lately though, Gin. Are you worrying about NEWTs?"

"Not really. I suppose that I should be, but I don't care as much as I used to do. It seems so much less important than it did two years ago." Ginny looked sideways at her brother as she appeared to debate something for a moment. "Harry has been funny lately."

Bill did not say anything for several moments as he waited for Ginny to continue speaking. When it became clear to him that she was not sure what to say he asked, "Do you understand how important you are to him, Ginny?"

Ginny looked nervously up at Bill. "Yes. I think that it might have been frightening once, but I understand that need a little now."

"Perhaps you have some sense of it after our losses, but Harry has _always_ lost the people he most cares about, Ginny. His personality has been shaped by his losses, Gin. Yours was shaped by the love of our family. He lost Sirius and eventually Remus. He lost Dumbledore. He still has Ron, but he lost Hermione. Even his muggle aunt is gone, Ginny. Regardless of how reasonable it is he is going to both blame himself and be terrified that he will lose what is left to him. He has lost someone at a rate of at least one a year for some time. He's telling himself that it is time for it to happen again."

"I think you are right, but if I ask him about it then he pulls away from me. He is scared for us to get married because he fears that he is signing a death warrant for me if we do."

Bill sighed harshly. "I know, Gin. You just have to convince him that the time together is worth the cost. He believes that it is, but he is afraid to make that choice for you. You're going to have to make it."

Ginny blinked her tear-filled eyes and admitted with difficulty, "We had a horrible row about a month ago, Bill. We haven't really recovered from it. He is afraid to do or say anything now for fear that I will break off the engagement again."

Bill blanched slightly. "So you did break it off. We wondered. Harry looked like death for almost four days."

Ginny gulped slightly and asked guiltily, "You saw him?"

"Yes, Gin."

Looking away again, Ginny explained, "It was because I found out that he has passed three warlockry exams and is a full member of the Andromeda Society."

Bill grimly said, "Yes and I was his patron, Ginny."

Ginny screeched, "You! I don't believe it. Gwen said that her father had told her you were a member, but I wouldn't believe it."

"I have been a full member since the year after I left Hogwarts, Ginny. Dumbledore recommended me for entrance at the end of my seventh year and arranged a patron for me. I became a Master five years ago."

Waving her hands angrily in front of her, Ginny asked, "What do you want to join that lot for? I don't understand."

"Clearly not, Ginny, but I'm not going to explain it to you. You're making a mistake if you believe that Harry was wrong to do it."

Ginny continued to look determinedly away from her brother as they turned the last corner on the small cobblestone street. "Elisabeth's family lives at the end of the lane up there."

Bill asked in a concerned tone, "You are sure that Hogwarts understands that there will be three of you to be collected?"

Ginny unhappily responded, "Yes. Elisabeth's mother has added Gwen and me to the number to be collected in Hogsmeade. Elisabeth says there are usually ten other Scots students who come to Hogsmeade instead of using the Hogwarts Express, so we won't be alone there. The stagecoaches will collect us about noon."

"I'm still not sure I like it, Gin. There is much more security in taking the Hogwarts Express."

"I'll be fine, Bill. They have aurors patrolling the area where we'll be waiting anyway and they have extra people when students are being collected. That's why we have to come a day early, so they can handle our security properly."

Looking extremely serious, Bill replied, "Yes, I've asked Anders to look into it specially."

"I don't need a personal bodyguard, Bill."

"I hope not, Ginny, but I am not the only person who has an interest in your safety and wants to be sure you get back to school without incident."

"Harry asked you to look out for me, didn't he?"

Bill looked at his sister from the corner of his eye and saw Ginny's expression was only slightly accusing. "Yes, he did, but I would have done so in any case."

"That's why he asked you. I should owl him…no maybe I ought to floo him when we get to Elisabeth's."

"That is one of the better ideas you've had today. You will find him at the Burrow. He is waiting there for an owl from me saying you got here safely."

"He is? I had no idea he was so worried."

Bill placed a hand on his sister's back soothingly as they walked up to the front door of the MacLeod house and said, "He's always worried about you, but if you don't think that both George and Ron are waiting for an owl, too…"

Ginny smiled weakly and placed her hand on the door knocker.

As soon as he heard the clang of the knocker, Bill's attention suddenly became focussed on whether his robes were straight, his hair had fallen out of the hair elastic, or anything else about his appearance was amiss. However, before he had enough time to do anything beyond get quite sickeningly nervous, the large oak door opened. A sour-faced house elf wearing a dark blue jacket stood resolutely in front of Ginny and Bill. The elf bowed slightly and spoke in an unpleasant, high pitched voice, "Please enter."

Ginny said kindly, "Hello, Badger. Which way? Down the hall?"

Bill stepped inside the large hall and heard what sounded like a small stampede coming towards them.

"Ginny! You're finally here!" Elisabeth MacLeod and Gwenaëlle Gurley burst through the doorway and into the hall, followed by another girl whom Bill didn't recognise.

Ginny exclaimed excitedly, "Astrid! What are you doing here? I thought you were off training." As Ginny first gave Elisabeth a hug and then flung herself towards the unfamiliar witch, who seemed to be every bit as excited to see Ginny, Bill tried his best not to stare or look particularly obvious about anything.

"Thank you for bringing Ginny, Bill. You will stay to tea, won't you? Mother wanted me to ask, but we all want you to stay, don't we Gwen?"

Gwen, who had just finished being hugged happily by Ginny, said quietly, "Of course we do. It is very nice to see you again, Bill."

Bill carefully replied, "Nice to see you, as well, Gwenaëlle. Thank you, Elisabeth. I would be happy to stay."

"Oh, Astrid, do you know Ginny's brother, Bill Weasley? He was a Gryffindor a few years before you. He works for Gringott's Bank like Theseus."

The slender, blond witch gave Bill a friendly smile and said, "Everyone has read about Bill Weasley, of course. It's nice to meet you. My name is Astrid Holcombe."

Bill courteously shook the young woman's hand and looked over at his sister, who was peeling off her cloak and handing it to the house elf. As he did the same, Bill was fully conscious of being watched with interest by Astrid Holcombe and strained his mind to think whether he had seen her before and who Theseus might be.

When he turned back from handing his cloak to the disgruntled house elf, Bill saw that Gwen and Ginny were walking towards the door and Elisabeth was politely waiting for him with the other witch.

"Did you know someone else who works at Gringott's, Miss Holcombe?"

The witch laughed lightly and said, "Theseus Brown, Elisabeth's and my cousin."

Bill, who knew Brown as a stuffy, somewhat egotistical clerk in another department, smiled and said, "Yes, I have met your cousin."

The blond witch replied, "Dreadful bore, Theseus, but dependable. He's mentioned you and your reputation before."

Unsure what to say, Bill smiled and tried to catch up with Elisabeth, who was leading them down the corridor. As he hurried along he heard a light, musical laugh come out of the room at the far end. His features relaxed involuntarily into a smile and he wondered how long he would be able to stay before his presence was too obvious.


	6. Chapter 6

Elisabeth resolutely set down the owl from Thomas and leant back into the chair cushion. She had been avoiding thinking about what her cousin had said until she could find some time alone to think privately, but she didn't have any further excuses to put it off. Astrid had thought that Bill Weasley seemed extremely reluctant to leave the house after staying to tea the day before. Astrid also had a theory about why Bill had been so unaccountably willing to sit and talk to his sister's friends.

Elisabeth looked round the common room to be sure that she was alone. Gwen and Ginny had gone to sleep hours ago and the three of them were the only ones in any of the Gryffindor rooms. Since the only students in the castle were the local Scots students and those who had remained at school during the holidays, Elisabeth knew she could reasonably expect not to meet anyone in the halls if she took a walk. She was a prefect after all, so she shouldn't have any trouble if a professor saw her. Elisabeth picked up her cloak from the floor and hurried out of the common room and into the corridor outside.

As she wandered down the dark stairway to the storey below, Elisabeth began thinking about what Astrid had suggested. Not only did Elisabeth feel certain that Gwen's mother would never approve of a British wizard for her daughter, Elisabeth also felt it unlikely that Gwen would find Bill Weasley an attractive option.

Elisabeth pulled open the door to the arithmancy classroom and settled herself on the top of one of the desks near the window. There was a very new moon outside, so the landscape surrounding the castle was almost completely unlit. She could see a slight glow on the lawn below, which probably meant that someone else was awake and sitting in the room below her. Resolving to stay quiet, Elisabeth leant against the windowpane and pressed her nose to the glass as she returned to her thoughts.

Regardless of what Gwen said about honouring the traditions of her family, Elisabeth knew that Gwen loathed what had been planned for her. For several weeks Gwen had been receiving regular owls from her mother, which contained information about the four wizards that the family had selected for formal negotiations. Although Elisabeth was sure that Gwen dutifully read them at some point, neither Ginny nor Elisabeth had ever seen Gwen even open the thick, wax-sealed parchment scrolls.

Elisabeth frowned as she considered how much her own mother would like to have the ability to require Elisabeth to obey her like Breton mothers could. Mother hated Aurelius and thought that Thomas was a "very nice sort of wizard." Luckily, Mother had no idea that it was not Thomas, but Aurelius who had sent most of the owls that Elisabeth had received over the holiday break. Not that Elisabeth had read any of them. They'd all gone straight into the fire.

Elisabeth pulled herself back from the cold glass of the window and shivered slightly as she debated with herself whether she should mention what Astrid had said to either Gwen or Ginny. Astrid might have been wrong. It did seem odd that Bill would be so interested in a witch that he barely knew. Perhaps he had managed to catch something of the fiery personality that she and Ginny saw every day, which would go a long way towards explaining his interest. But although Gwen's extremely ethnic looks were striking, on her best day Gwen was not beautiful.

Shoving her hand in the wand pocket of her robe, Elisabeth slid from the top of the desk onto the floor. Then, walking very softly so as not to catch the notice of whoever was in the room below her, Elisabeth exited the classroom and cautiously began to return to the Gryffindor dorms. Having decided that it would do no good to tell Gwen, and feeling that if Bill didn't want Ginny to know then it wasn't right for Elisabeth to tell her, Elisabeth now felt that she could devote her mind to deciphering Thomas' latest owl. She had to come to some sort of decision about him, since Aurelius would be returning with the other students tomorrow. She just knew he was going to try to talk to her alone. Yet if she couldn't make up her mind about Thomas first, then being alone with Aurelius might be dangerous. As she placed one hand on the railing to a slowly shifting staircase, Elisabeth admitted that she wouldn't really mind that so very much after all.

* * *

Looking up from the owl she had been reading as Ginny burst into the bedroom, Gwen asked with interest, "You look happy. What has happened?" 

Ginny settled onto the edge of Elisabeth's bed, which was closer to Gwen's, and breathed out excitedly, "I've finally convinced him that we should fly in the face of danger and get married this summer."

Gwen's expression changed immediately into one of pleasure as she shoved a thick scroll with heavy black seals under her pillow and moved to sit next to Ginny. "That's wonderful, Ginny! I know you'll be so happy together. Harry really loves you."

"Oh I know he does. That hasn't been the problem, you know. The trouble is that he's terrified that the moment we marry then someone will hex me into my grave.

"What changed his mind?"

Ginny touched her finger to the stone on a thin, silvery ring and said calmly, "Well, nothing. He is still afraid of something happening to me. However, I reminded him that being engaged means that we actually do have to get married, else the engagement has to end."

Gwen's eyes widened. "You know he really wants to be with you, Ginny."

"Yes, I do. That's the really wonderful thing about Harry – I do understand him. Unfortunately he has a bad habit of trying to make decisions for me when he thinks he is keeping me safe. On the other hand he wants a family with me more than anything. He will have to learn that I don't like to be managed any more than he does."

"So you are going to be married this summer then?"

"Yes. I want us to have some time together before I begin training. I think he'll need that, especially."

Gwen asked a little uncertainly, "He won't want you to leave off training will he?"

Ginny snorted with amusement, "I'd like to see him ask."

"I'm glad. He doesn't seem that sort but you never know with wizards."

"Harry isn't like that, Gwen. He has no ideas of me being a housewitch, since he knows that I wouldn't be happy."

Gwen sighed, "You're so lucky, Ginny." Gwen had pulled out her wand and was now absently transfiguring the little figurine on the top of her trunk into a series of progressively uglier hags as she stared at the wall ahead of her. "You deserve to be happy, _both_ of you."

Ginny heard the slightly discontented tone of Gwen's voice, but knew the source of Gwen's disappointment. Ginny tactfully changed the subject and asked, "Where is Elisabeth?"

Gwen looked pointedly at Ginny and said softly, "I think that she has gone off with Aurelius."

"Has she? I wish someone would hex his beautiful face with pox long enough for Elisabeth to see that is his only attraction."

Gwen's face perked slightly as she said, "Do you think that pox would do it? I've done a bad-breath curse. I thought at least that would keep her from kissing him. I know a very nice boil curse though. Do you think that would modify nicely or should I look up a tried-and-true pox one?"

Ginny snorted with laughter. "You didn't! Of course you would, I don't know why I'm surprised. That is perfect, since it is subtle so she won't suspect he is being cursed."

"Yes, that was what I had decided. I had planned to add a mild sweating charm tomorrow, so his face is shiny and hands are slightly clammy. Then I was thinking of a sebum enhancing charm so his hair would clump together with grease. She'll just assume he isn't bathing. I was thinking that a body odour charm might be too much, since I believe that a vague, subtle hint that Aurelius is a slimy bastard is the goal."

Somewhat taken aback, Ginny commented, "Goodness, Gwen. You have planned it out, haven't you?"

"Of course. If she is going to make an idiot of herself with Aurelius then she needs to know what sort of wizard she is choosing. I was sorely tempted to cast a Discontent charm on her instead, but that would be like making the decision for her, which isn't fair."

Ginny frowned at her friend, but feeling herself unequal to unravelling Gwen's logic she shook her head and stroked her ring as she replied, "Why do so many witches always want the wizards who are the worst possible choice?"

* * *

"Do you think that I should have studied the Eastern defence charms more? We only spent a week on them in class, but you never know what the examiners will do." 

"No, Bill says that they never test on that sort of thing. I'm focussing on standard auror defensive charms – the sort of thing they teach during the first year of training. Harry says that is what we are likely to need to know."

"But how does he _know_?"

Ginny raised one eyebrow and looked at Elisabeth coldly. "He wouldn't tell me something so specific if he didn't actually know."

Gwen, who had been sucking absently on the tip of her sugar quill, said, "Well anyway Bill got an impossibly high score on his defence NEWT so his advice is solid, isn't it? I am going to practise English-style defence spells only. I doubt they'll even want anything continental."

Ginny slumped back into her chair and sighed. "I wish the exams were tomorrow instead of next week. My brain is just full; I don't know how much more I can learn. I just want it to be over."

Elisabeth shook her head wildly, "Don't even say that. I desperately need more time to revise my notes. I've made Aurelius promise to practise duelling charms with me today and Wednesday, but I just know I'm going to be rubbish when the examiner is there."

Gwen, who had exchanged a brief glance with Ginny at the mention of Aurelius Beaucharme, replied soothingly, "You won't be rubbish. I've practised it all with you heaps of times, Elisabeth. There is no doubt you will pass."

"I thought so last week, but now I am not so sure. When Aurelius was quizzing me it seemed like I didn't know anything! That's why he is going to help me."

Ginny's eyes flashed as she looked angrily at the papers in front of her and said only, "Is that why?"

Gwen looked somewhat meditative as she gazed at her best friend, who was biting her thumbnail and looking hopelessly at the stack of books in front of her. "I don't know what material he was asking you, but you _do_ know defence, Elisabeth. Why don't you try some of your other subjects and return to Defence later with a fresh mind?"

"Well I think that I remember enough of Transfiguration, Runes, History, and Astronomy. I suppose we could read for Charms a bit."

Ginny shoved a thick, ancient book towards Gwen and said, "Here. Bill sent me this to revise for Charms."

Gwen shrugged her shoulders and closed the charms text that she had just opened. "Did he? It looks rather musty, but I suppose your brother would not have sent it if it wouldn't be useful. Where shall we start? Preservation charms?"

Elisabeth nudged Gwen with her elbow and whispered urgently, "Edwin!"

All three girls turned round to face Edwin Sorrel, who had stopped at the end of their table. "Hello, Edwin." Ginny said pleasantly as she kicked Gwen underneath the table.

Edwin Sorrel took a deep breath and said, "Hi, Ginny. Hi Elisabeth. Hello, Gwen. M-may I speak to you p-please, Gwen? Just for a moment."

Gwen, after lightly kicking Ginny back, stood up as she said, "Alright, Edwin. Shall we step out into the corridor?"

Ginny and Elisabeth both watched in surprise as Gwen led Edwin out of the library with her back held ramrod straight and head high. As soon as Gwen had walked through the library doors that Edwin had hurriedly opened for her, Elisabeth said sorrowfully, "Poor Edwin, he finally got his courage together. I had rather hoped he wouldn't, so she wouldn't have a chance to crush him."

"Yes, she's in 'queen' mode, too. Why can't the poor clot take a hint? If she were interested in him she would have given him more encouragement." Ginny shook her head and sighed as she turned back to the table and pulled the charms book from in front of where Gwen had been sitting.

Elisabeth replied sadly, "She can't encourage him, you know. Her family has received four formal offers for her already and there will be more. What would be the point of dating any other wizards really?"

Ginny shrugged her shoulders. "In Gwen's mind there wouldn't be any point. If it were me I'd rather go out with a bang. But then her only option at the moment is Edwin who would be less of a bang and more of a tiny little pop."

Elisabeth giggled for a moment and then her face sobered as she said, "Poor Edwin. Did you hear that he is going to be work in his uncle's cauldron supply shop after school? I do hope he doesn't mention that to Gwen."

"I don't think it matters. No matter what he says she will shut him down."


	7. Chapter 7

In answer to some questions:

Morbihan is a coastal district in Brittany, which is a region in northern France. Brittany has traditionally been very distinct culturally from the rest of France, with very strong traditions. The Breton are ethnically Celt. The language spoken in the region is (beyond the standard French required to be taught in schools) either one of two versions of Breton Gaelic (however Brezhoneg is far more common of the two) and a dialect or patois that mixes Brezhoneg and French. Breton muggles have traditionally fought centralisation to Paris, keeping many older traditions long after other regions of France have relinquished them. Unless obviously magical, any traditions you see herein are based heavily on reality.

* * *

As he heard the start of one of his favourite songs begin, Bill waved his wand in the direction of the small black wireless that was sitting on the edge of his kitchen countertop. He turned his face grimly back to the job at hand and muttered, "They'll only play Celestina Warbeck or Barnabas Bibble next to make up for it. Bloody useless this wireless programmer is." 

Staring down at the mess of torn fabric in front of him, Bill frowned again and thought, "Household spells ought to be a required course. How hard should it really be to fix this?"

Bill took a deep breath and placed the threaded needle at the beginning of a long tear and tapped his wand to begin the charm. The needle jumped up and dove deeply into the fabric, jabbing through itself into Bill's leg. With a howl of pain, Bill jumped up from the chair and dropped the torn robe onto the seat. He had been working on mending it for a half hour and was no further along. He was simply going to have to ask for help.

Looking round the messy kitchen, Bill knew that he wasn't doing much better at looking after himself than his mother had predicted. He had put very little energy into straightening the house and almost none into preparing the food he ate. He was aware that his robes were barely presentable most of the time. However he could not bring himself to spend more time at home that was necessary; there was nothing about the house that did not remind him of Fleur. Yet he could not yet bring himself to get rid of anything that she had touched. He had even left the extremely ugly mirror that Fleur had bought for their bedroom, despite the fact that it commented frequently on his 'disgraceful' appearance.

Bill tore his thoughts away from the state of his home and back to the torn dress robes that he was supposed to have worn the next weekend. It was to be the first wedding that he had attended since his own. Anders had threatened to curse him if he didn't attend, and Bill was aware that Anders would actually follow through on his promise. Bill was either going to have to purchase new dress robes or take the ones that were sitting in a heap on his chair to his mother.

Making a grand gesture with his wand at the pile of crockery strewn across the kitchen table, Bill spoke the washing up spell and strode from the kitchen into the sitting room and nudged aside a large stack of books with his foot so that he could pull out the chair in front of his desk. As he sat down he began to rummage through the cubby holes of the desk for a clean bit of parchment and a bottle of ink that hadn't dried up. Finally having found all the implements he needed to write, Bill pulled out a small roll of light blue parchment from his pocket and gently set it down in front of him.

He didn't really need to reread it, but he still carefully perused the lines that had been written in her very neat hand. It was only a thank you owl for his help with purchasing the Epidex level supplies that she had needed for her seventh year project. There was nothing particularly special about anything that she had written, nor had she left open any obvious route for him to keep communicating with her since she had remembered to include with her note all the paperwork that he would need to submit to the Ministry. The only hopeful thing was that he was now allowed to write back to her, since she had first written to him.

However, he knew that he would not be able to stretch the opportunity to anything other than a friendly receipt of notice. Anders' Breton great-uncle had written a detailed explanation of what Bill could expect from Gwen's family and from her. The traditions and expectations surrounding a Breton witch's marriage were archaic, foreign, and almost perfectly designed for Bill to fail. The elderly Breton wizard had even found out what Gwen's family had been requiring of the wizards who had submitted offers for her. Bill could never hope to meet the family's minimum standards.

Bill knew that he would have to accept that he was not going to get what he wanted. Even if she had shown the slightest interest, which she had not, there was nothing he could promise Gwen that made him a better candidate. Bill sighed and shook his head as he began to write a short, proper response to her owl.

* * *

"I haven't felt so full since the Christmas feast. That was an obscenely good cake your Mum made for us, Ginny." 

Ginny laughed and replied sleepily as she blocked the sunlight from her eyes with her hand, "I think what was truly obscene was how much we all ate of it. Gwen and I alone ate half."

"And we'll be eating even more in a few hours. I'm going to put on a stone before your wedding day arrives."

"Mmm, I don't care. It feels lovely to have nothing to think about but _good_ things. I don't even care about my NEWT results right now."

"I am trying not to think of it really. You know, I never thought I would feel so sad that we aren't going back next year. All I dreamed about for months was finishing the exams and escaping from school, but now that we have gone I wish it weren't all over."

Ginny lifted her head from where it had been resting on her arm whilst she lay across a large brown blanket and replied, "You really didn't think about it? I thought of it all year. There were so many times that I thought, "Well that is the last time I shall ever do that."

Elisabeth shook her head and said sadly, "I was too caught up with everything else and I was so panicked about the exams. I wish I'd sort of walked round and said goodbye to everything, at least once. I'll never do any of it again, will I?"

As Ginny lifted herself so that she was propped up on her elbow, Gwen reached out an arm and snatched the last chocolate biscuit from the plate next to Ginny. Ginny made a face at Gwen and replied to Elisabeth, "No, we won't." Ginny moved to sit up and looked back at Gwen, who was finishing the last mouthful of biscuit and now looking in the direction of the Burrow as if she were expecting something. "But there are other things now. Hogwarts was part of our childhood, but that's over, Elisabeth. We'll all be married before this time next year."

Elisabeth's cheeks turned bright red. "Well, I haven't said yes yet, Ginny."

Gwen suddenly interjected, "But you will. You'll have to make your decision soon."

Ginny, who looked surprised at Gwen's somewhat harsh tone, turned her head and tried to follow Gwen's gaze, but could not see anything but her brother, Ron, degnoming the garden. "Well Thomas won't be back from Italy for another two weeks, so she still has time, Gwen. Anyway, I suppose we should go back. The party is only two hours away. Mum will want some help."

Elisabeth and Gwen both stood up and began to help Ginny as she started charming the remainder of the picnic into the basket. Avoiding looking at Gwen, Elisabeth asked, "When does your great-aunt arrive, Ginny?"

"Tuesday. When do you two have to go back to Scotland again?"

"Mum will be here on Tuesday. But we'll be back in another few weeks. It's just that Mum promised that she would act as guardian and chaperone for Gwen, so we can't stay away long."

"Oh, I understand perfectly. Have you heard from them, Gwen?"

Gwen shook her head and said unhappily, "No. Mother's last letter was almost four days ago. Father's treatment was supposed to take almost two weeks, so I don't know when I shall hear anything. You know that owl post from Morocco is slow anyway."

Ginny placed her hand on Gwen's back and said kindly, "I'm sure that your father is fine, Gwen. Bill said that the sort of curse that your step-father has is most likely derived from a branch of Arab magic, so the healers he is seeing should be better able to deal with it than either St Mungo's, your Breton healers, or even the Flemish healers."

Gwen looked gratefully at Ginny before she responded, "That is what Mother is hoping. The specialist is Egyptian, actually, and seems to have a lot of practical experience with similar curses."

Elisabeth put her arm round Gwen and added, "Then he may be able to think of something that the others couldn't."

"I hope so. I wish Mother would have let me come and see him before they began treatment, however. I haven't seen him since last summer and he's been too ill to write almost anything other than at Christmas and my birthday."

"Yes, but he did send you a long owl for your birthday, didn't he? I'm sure he misses you, too."

Gwen set her jaw firmly and said slowly, "Well, I think, hadn't we better go and help your mother, Ginny? I am sure she could use us in the kitchen or something."

* * *

It ought to have been long enough; she had waited for almost an hour. They should be asleep by now and she should be free to get up without disturbing them. Gwen sat up quietly and looked about the dark room, trying to acclimate her eyes so that she could find her way across to where she had laid her robes over her trunk. Slipping stealthily from the bed, Gwen hurried across the room with her fist clenched round a thick roll of parchment and stopped beside Elisabeth's trunk to quickly dress. Having buttoned the last in a row of tiny jet buttons and raked her hands through her hair fitfully, Gwen grabbed the parchment roll again, shoved it in her pocket, felt for her wand, and then stepped over to the door. 

Once out into the corridor, Gwen almost ran down the stairs and through the kitchen. Nervously fiddling with the kitchen door, she looked round as if someone might have seen her, and then stepped outside into the moonlit night, closing the door firmly behind her. Once outside the door, Gwen stopped for a moment and leant against the thick wood. Her hand went immediately to her pocket, but instead of pulling out the parchment she shook her head, looked over at a line of trees near the top of a small hill, and then began to race hurriedly towards them.

When she had pushed through the low hanging branches into the small clearing beyond, Gwen stopped briefly as she saw that Bill was standing beside the bench, looking completely shocked to see her. Walking more slowly, Gwen crossed the grass towards where he was standing.

Gwen stood next to him for a moment and when he did not speak, she asked, "Would you rather I went somewhere else, Bill?"

Bill stammered, "No, no, I just, you know I didn't think you would come out here again."

Gwen looked up at him with a strange expression on her face and said, "I can't read this over with Elisabeth nearby you know. She doesn't understand how serious it is. She seems to think that I could somehow escape it just by saying I don't want to or have Father intervene."

Bill sat down next to her and tried hard to keep his face neutral as he said, "I understand that your laws restrict you, Gwenaëlle. But I don't think that I am the person to talk to about this. I was happy to explain your mother's report from the healer to you, but you have to know, you can't have failed to understand yesterday why I can't advise you about your marriage."

Gwen shook her head and set down the rolls of parchment that she had brought. "I understand that, Bill."

Bill picked up the roll of parchment from the bench, but did not look at it. "_Do_ you understand, Gwenaëlle?"

Gwen turned her very pale, strained face up to him and replied in a tiny voice, "Yes."

Bill looked away from her at what he held in his hands and said, "That is why you came out here again?"

"Yes, Bill."

With shaking hands, Bill unrolled the pile of parchment and spread it across his knees so he could read it. "What am I looking for? What are you asking me to do?"

"Nothing, Bill. I didn't come out here to ask you for anything."

Bill looked at the parchment on the top of the pile and raised his eyebrows. He was holding the section of French code that dealt with the status of unmarried Breton Wizarding females. Bill asked with disbelief, "You are looking for a way out legally?"

"I don't think that there is one."

Bill took a deep breath and asked, "You know your family better than I do, but do you believe that they will allow you to remain unmarried? I think _that_ is probably your way out, Gwenaëlle."

Gwen stood up from the bench and shook her head angrily, "No. If I go back toBrittany I won't be able to refuse Uncle. He will make it impossible. I won't be allowed to decline _all_ of the proposals. But if I don't go back when Mother orders me to return then I shall never be allowed home. They will repudiate me."

Bill looked away from the witch pacing the grass in front of him and turned back to the parchments in his lap. He passed one hand over his blanched white face and then flipped through the stack of parchments until he reached one almost half the way through the stack. He pulled it out and began to read it carefully. Gwen stood staring at him as he read, but as he began to speak she sank onto furthest end of the bench from him.

"There is nothing here, Gwenaëlle. These laws are iron clad. I have studied them myself, you know, as well as your family's requirements for proposal."

Gwen's mouth wavered slightly as she took back the parchments from Bill's lap and vanished them with a wave of her wand. "Very well then." She stood up without looking at him and turned away to walk back to the house.

In a hoarse voice Bill called out, "What did you want me to say?"

Gwen turned round and said softly, "I am sorry, Bill."

Bill stared at Gwen, before standing up and saying, "Gwenaëlle, I am not afraid to stand up to your family. I don't care about the consequences to me, but I do care about what it would be like for you. You wouldn't have anything, not even the right to do magic."

Gwen sighed, "I don't see why you say I would have nothing, Bill."

Bill caught Gwen's hands and pulled her down onto the bench and sat close to her. "Would you? You would marry me, Gwenaëlle?"

Gwen looked up at him seriously and replied, "Of course I would, Bill."

Bill looked confused and stunned. He continued to hold her hands tightly and said stupidly, "You will?"

"I have been hoping that you would say something for months. I have been afraid that maybe I had misunderstood your interest."

Bill shook his head in disbelief and raised his hand tentatively to where Gwen's hair draped over her shoulder and lightly touched it. "I didn't think you had noticed me at all."

"Bill."

Bill looked down at Gwen, who had raised her head so that she was now only a few inches from him. She had lifted a hand to his chest and was staring intently at him. There was nothing more that he needed to say.


	8. Chapter 8

"Here she is, Ginny! She's back." Elisabeth got up from the chair where she had been stretched out reading and went to meet Gwen as Gwen walked across the garden to the house.

"Did you find enough of them?" Ginny called out cheerfully.

Gwen hugged her arms to her as she said quietly, "Yes, I got 32, that should be enough. We can start the potion tomorrow and then it can rest until Elisabeth and I are back, which should be during the proper moon phase to finish."

"You've been gone all morning. Did you have trouble?"

Gwen shook her head. "It always takes a long time to collect trollywollop eggs. That's why they are so expensive to purchase."

Ginny had reached where Gwen and Elisabeth were standing and said happily, "You don't know how excited Mum was that you know how to collect them. It should save us almost a hundred galleons, I think."

Gwen pulled a small blue sack from her pocket and handed it to Ginny. "I'm glad I could help. I used to collect potions ingredients for Father when I was little. He would pay me in chocolates."

Ginny laughed. "I can promise you a whole box of them. Are you hungry?"

Gwen smiled weakly. "A little. Did you eat lunch yet?"

Elisabeth opened the door to the kitchen and waited for Gwen and Ginny to catch up to her. "No, Mrs Weasley has been waiting for you, so do hurry up. I'm starved."

Ginny swept Gwen into the kitchen and when she saw her brother standing by the fireplace dusting off his robes, Ginny said cheerfully, "Hello, Bill. Have you come for lunch, too?"

Bill looked at his sister steadily and said, "Yes. Mum wanted me to help her again."

Mrs Weasley bustled in to the room, having clearly just realised that her son had flooed in, saying excitedly, "Bill! You are so early. You look tired, too. I was just saying to Arthur that they work you too hard at the bank. You really ought to take better care of yourself." She reached up to hug her son and then said, "It is nice to see you wearing robes for a change though, Bill. And without that horrible fang in your ear. Hello Gwen, dear, I'm so glad that you are back. Why don't you and Elisabeth sit down at the table?"

Bill extricated himself from his mother's grasp and said nothing as he slowly unfastened his travelling cloak and then asked, "When does Harry get here, Gin?"

Ginny took Bill's cloak and went to put it in the cloak cupboard saying, "Probably at three."

Elisabeth put her arm round Gwen and led her over to the table, which was laden with food. "There was an owl for you this morning, Gwen. I have it upstairs for you. Do you want for me to get it?"

Gwen looked up anxiously from the bowl she had been contemplating on the table and asked, "Yes, please, will you?"

Elisabeth nodded and turned away to go retrieve the owl. Gwen returned to staring at the bowl and tried not to look up when Bill sat down at the table across from her.

Mrs Weasley turned from the stove with a loaf of bread on a plate and asked kindly, "How did you get on finding the trollywollop eggs, Gwen?"

"I have 32. That should be more than enough, I think."

Mrs Weasley beamed at Gwen as she placed three slices of bread on Gwen's plate. "You were gone quite some time, dear. You must be hungry."

Gwen nodded politely and turned her attention to the food in front of her. She knew that Bill was looking at her, but she could not dare to look up at him.

"We will be sorry to have you leave tomorrow, Gwen. It has been a pleasure having you and Elisabeth to stay."

Gwen smiled lightly, "Thank you, Mrs Weasley. You have been very kind to have us."

"Nonsense. You are always welcome. Ginny dear, would you go and tell your father to come sit down to eat?"

Ginny, who had just re-entered the room, rolled her eyes at her mother and turned to go out again.

Alone with Bill in the room, except for his mother who was busy with the food, Gwen could feel his gaze upon her as she tried very hard not to look at him. She knew that there was no chance that she could keep her composure if she saw him – he was not good at hiding his emotions and she would know what he was thinking immediately.

Fortunately just as Gwen was beginning to feel as if she couldn't bear to hold out any longer, Elisabeth entered the room with the owl that had arrived for Gwen that morning. She stood up anxiously and took the owl from Elisabeth's hands and hurriedly opened it.

"Are you alright, Gwen? Here, sit down and read it." Elisabeth shoved Gwen into a chair and took the glass of pumpkin juice that Bill had just thrust over to her and pushed it into Gwen's hand. "Take a sip of juice."

Gwen dutifully took a small sip and handed it back, saying, "I'm fine. Really."

"What does it say, Gwen?"

"I don't know. I think it's bad, but I don't understand what the results mean."

Mrs Weasley, who was standing next to her with a concerned look on her face, held out her hand and said, "Let me look at it dear. You go on and eat something as I'm reading."

Gwen shook her head. "It is in French. She usually writes in _Brezoneg_, but the medical things are too complex for me in anything but French."

Bill, who was now standing next to his mother looking extremely haggard, took the letter from his mother's hand and perused it intently. After a moment he said slowly, "Your step-father did not react well to the first type of treatment they tried, but he has improved somewhat with this new spell. They are using some very unusual potions, one of which I don't recognise, but they seem to have a better plan now."

Gwen nodded and sat down again next to Elisabeth, who put her arm round Gwen and said encouragingly, "He is improving; that is promising, isn't it?"

Bill handed the owl back to Gwen with a warning look at his mother, who immediately understood Bill's message and quickly said, "Well, then, that is hopeful, isn't it, dear? Ginny come and sit down next to Gwen so we can get started. Hurry up, Arthur, come sit down."

Looking somewhat bewildered by his wife's sharp tone, Arthur sat down at the head of the table and took the platter that was being handed to him by his son. "This looks good, Molly."

"It will be getting cold if we don't start soon."

The lunch progressed slowly with an uncomfortably stiff conversation being carried on between Bill, Ginny, and Arthur Weasley and very little food being eaten by anyone other than Arthur. Bill, who had managed to sit directly across from Gwen, had not been able to catch her eye even once during the meal and had begun to worry that she was upset over more than just the owl from her mother. The letter had not given them any worse news than the one he had explained to her two nights before. As much as Gwen was very worried about her step-father's health, he felt that this could not be the only thing causing her to so uncharacteristically display her feelings publicly.

Bill looked over the table at his mother, who was trying very hard to converse with Gwen and Elisabeth about the felicity potion that they were going to make for the wedding. His mother seemed to have no more idea how to interact with Gwen than she had with Fleur. Of course he was aware that he was also completely out of his depth when it came to understanding Gwen, this had been clear to him from the very beginning. He suspected that he would always be running to catch up to her, much like he had done with Fleur. But there was very little about Gwen that was like Fleur and Bill was still not completely sure what had happened to place them where they were now.

He was pretty sure that they were actually married, since the volume of paperwork that he had filled out that morning at the Ministry was something one did not often add to one's fantasies, but there was very little about the event itself that had conformed to anything he had imagined. There was certainly nothing happy or hopeful about the way that the clerk had explained to them the fact that the marriage would be reported to French authorities, who might very possibly notify Breton officials.

Bill reached out to take another piece of bread, which was the only food that he felt he could manage, and turned back to the conversation that he had been trying to have with his father. But as Ginny talked about something that Harry had told her in one of his daily owls, Bill's attention wandered again to that morning. It had been hard to bear how preternaturally quiet Anders had been when Bill had flooed and asked him to be a witness. Of course Anders had come, but Bill had been aware that Anders did not think that Bill was making a good choice. The three of them had hardly talked as they had awaited their turn to enter the small blue room where Ministry marriages were officiated.

Avoiding looking at Gwen as he chewed a mouthful of dry bread, Bill allowed himself to reflect on her appearance that morning. Gwen could not have looked less English as she had sat on the chair in the stuffy little office, holding her hands tightly in her lap. Her normally long, straight black hair had been fiercely braided into a large, twisted bun and a schoolgirl's small, stiff lace _coiffe_ placed on the top of her head with long white streamers tucked behind her ears. Her robes had been black and heavily embroidered and the only piece of jewellery that she had worn was a small silver bracelet with a large black cross that dangled from it. Nevertheless, Bill had thought her the most stunning witch he had ever seen and had been unable to keep from gazing at her in a way that upon reflection must have made Anders very uncomfortable.

Bill responded automatically to something that his father said as he worked to keep his eyes focussed away from Gwen. She was clearly desperately unhappy. Possibly she was wondering why she had decided to throw away her family, her entire culture, and her legal rights as a witch to live with him at some unknown date in the future. The wizards whose proposals her family had presented to her must have been an incredibly grim lot for her to be willing to choose what little he could offer her over a marriage to one of several very wealthy, prominent Breton warlocks.

Bill realised suddenly that everyone at the table had got up. Ginny was helping to clear the table and Elisabeth was talking to Gwen, who looked very pale and drawn. Bill stood up clumsily and grabbed up his plate as he watched Gwen slip out of the room to go upstairs. Allowing his eyes to linger too long on the door through which she had disappeared, Bill then turned about to see his father looking at him with sad eyes. Sending his plate to the sink with a wave of his wand, Bill nodded to his father and shoved his hand in his pocket to feel for his silver sand needle case. Waiting until he had followed his father into the study so that his mother would not see, Bill pulled out the case and dropped a very large pile of needles on the concave surface of the lid and tapped the edge of the lid with his wand.


	9. Chapter 9

Gwen carefully folded up the piece of parchment that she had been quietly reading and placed it in the inner pocket of her robe as she replied steadily to Elisabeth, "I think that you ought to go and see Aurelius."

Elisabeth, who had been fidgeting nervously with an owl of her own, looked up with surprise at her friend and asked, "Are you serious? You think I should go?"

"Yes, I do. If you marry Thomas without being sure how you feel about him or about Aurelius than you will never be happy. Just go, Elisabeth. It doesn't matter what I think or whether I approve of Aurelius."

"Are you sure? You've always said that…"

"That I don't approve of him? Well I don't. I think he will make you unhappy because he is unstable and unreliable. Thomas loves you even though he knows you are still hooked on Aurelius. He would wait until the next decade if he thought he could win you and I think he is worthy of you. But this is a decision for you to make. I don't know that you would approve of whatever decisions I have made about my own marriage. Perhaps you know better for yourself what you need."

"Oh. Have you, does that mean that you have decided?"

"I have."

"You have accepted a proposal then? Does that mean that you will be married soon?"

Gwen looked into the mirror as she adjusted her hair, avoiding looking at her friend as she responded, "Yes, I accepted a proposal. I don't want to talk about it please. I cannot talk to anyone about it until I have met with my mother."

"But, doesn't she know? I thought that she was involved with the negotiations."

Gwen turned round and fixed a quelling eye on her friend. "She is too caught up with Father's treatments to be worried about anything as unimportant as my marriage. I don't want her to worry about anything else, either. Father needs her. I will talk with her when she comes to meet with the Ministry about applying for a new residency permit, since hers expired when she had been outside the country for more than 30 days."

"Do you really think that they would refuse permission?"

"They might. They haven't proved anything against Father, but they know that Mother has a record with the Central Ministry for using dark magic. The fact that the potions she has made were legal in Brittany isn't of much interest to your Ministry, since they are very illegal here."

"But she hasn't done anything since she lived in Wales."

Gwen laughed. "Of course she has, silly. She has been making Father's potion every week for the past 18 years. They know it, of course, but they cannot prove it. I think that she will probably get permission to return to Wales, but she won't be in a very good mood when she meets with me, I'm afraid."

Elisabeth stopped biting her nail to ask with confusion, "But she'll be happy that you have decided, won't she?"

Gwen sighed. "I really would rather not talk about it, Elisabeth. Are you going to meet Aurelius?"

Elisabeth jumped up from the bed and bent over to read the small clock that was spinning on the table by her bed. "I suppose that I will. I don't know what Mum will say, but I think I have to go."

Gwen shrugged. "Don't tell her. Just go, Elisabeth. I will cover for you whilst you are gone."

Elisabeth hugged Gwen quickly, but said with surprise as she turned to grab a cloak, "I'm almost tempted to think you are under a spell, Gwen. You have been so different lately."

Gwen shook her head. "I'm still me. Go on and don't worry."

Elisabeth pushed her wand into a pocket saying, "Thank you. I'll be back as soon as I can."

Gwen nodded and watched as Elisabeth flew from the room. She waited as she listened to the sound of Elisabeth's feet running down the back stair and then sat down on the bed. After several moments of sitting motionless, she reached into her inner pocket and pulled out the sheet of parchment that had arrived at the same time as Elisabeth's owl from Aurelius.

It was obvious to her that Bill was very upset. Gwen knew what was worrying him, but she did not know how to reassure him adequately. The only thing that she could do was to reiterate that she was not sorry about what they had done and that she also was waiting for the time when they could let everyone know that they were married.

Gwen knew that Ginny especially would take a long time to really forgive her for the deception. Gwen had known this for months and yet had not seen any way that she could prepare Ginny, since Gwen had never been too certain what Bill was willing to do. For all the quiet encouragement that Gwen had tried to give him, Bill had never done anything despite the interest that Gwen had been sure she had seen as far back as the day at King's Cross. Any French wizard would have understood.

Gwen read over the words that Bill had written and sighed deeply. It was going to be difficult to learn how to manage Bill. Despite being a pureblood and a member of the oldest warlock's society in Western Europe, Bill did not really understand how impossible it was to expect her to comply with modern expectations. She had been almost shameless in how she had said and done everything that she could think of to push him to make a declaration that night. She was still embarrassed at how blatantly desperate she had been and was only glad that he, being too English, did not understand it.

Gwen stood up from the bed and walked over to Elisabeth's gilded, white writing desk. She pulled out several of the drawers until she found a bottle of ink that was neither sparkly nor pink and parchment that did not have Elisabeth's initials embossed on it. Sitting down on the delicate white desk chair with two pink silk cushions under her so that she could properly reach the desk surface, Gwen dipped a quill into the ink and began to write.

* * *

"Molly has asked me to speak to you again, Bill. She's very worried." 

Bill leant back in the chair across from his father and nodded his head. "I know she is. But there isn't anything that I can say, you know."

"I'm concerned, too, Bill. You are withdrawing from everything again. I haven't seen like this in months. Your sand needle usage has increased, which is not healthy, and you have been eating very little."

Bill closed his case and replied, "I know that I have been using too much. Even Anders says so and he inhales two packets a week."

Arthur shook his head at the proffered case and said, "Your mother will smell it on me. She doesn't approve. She won't even let me smoke my pipe indoors any longer."

Bill nodded. "I know. I'm sure she knows that I still inhale needle, but she doesn't say anything any longer. Not since I reminded her that even the Minister occasionally uses needle."

Arthur sighed. "It has become far too popular with the younger generation in the last few years, Bill. There is talk in the Ministry of making it illegal again to curb youth usage. There are so many long-term health risks."

"It probably should be illegal, but then so should bloodwhisky, considering everything."

Arthur smiled gently. "Very true. I wish you would tell me what is causing you to become so depressed again, Bill. I want to help you, son."

Bill wiped his face with his hand and let out a deep sigh. "I can't. I really can't."

"It is about Gwenaëlle Gurley?"

Bill dropped his feet off the ottoman and sat up a little more in the chair before answering, "Yes."

"Do you want us to approach her family?"

Bill's face registered surprise as he responded, "No. I have read both what their laws require and what her family wants for her."

Arthur nodded. "They are almost as difficult as the Castilians, Bill."

"I know."

Arthur picked up the silver case from the desk and opened the lid with a flick of his finger. "What do you want to do, son? Are you going to do something about it or are you going to continue to destroy yourself?"

Bill frowned. "I am sorry, Dad. I can't talk to you about it. I need you to accept that. I am not going to say any more about it."

Arthur hurriedly closed the sand needle case as a light knock was heard on the door. "What is it, Molly?"

The door opened and Molly Weasley entered the room holding a scrolled parchment that was heavily sealed with red wax. "Bill, dear, I…I didn't know what to do with this. I suppose the owl brought it here because it didn't know where else to go, but…"

Bill looked at the name that was inscribed on the other side of the scroll and felt his cheeks turn white.

"I'm so sorry, Bill. Maybe I shouldn't have given it to you, but I thought perhaps you would want it anyway."

"Thank you, Mum. I will take care of it."

Molly hovered for a moment next to her son before hurrying from the room as she mopped her eyes with a large white handkerchief.

Bill stared at the sealed owl, which had been addressed to Mrs William Weasley, and then peered closely at the marks in the red wax. It was possible that the owl had been meant for Fleur, as his mother had supposed, but it was more likely… Bill straightened back up and looked across at his father, having ascertained that the seal was charmed to the thumb mark and that the markings were the coat of arms for the Carmarthen Gurleys.

Speaking in an uncharacteristically sharp voice, Arthur Weasley asked his son, "Bill, tell me that you did not."

Bill stood up from the chair and said, "I am sorry."

Arthur's voice was angry as he asked, "Bill, do you have any idea what you have done?"

Bill placed the scroll in his pocket and replied, "Yes, I know exactly what I did. Please, you cannot speak of this yet, especially not to Mum."

Arthur was now also standing. "No, I won't say anything for now, but I don't think that you can have considered what this will mean for Gwenaëlle. If her family does not approve, which they very likely won't, the French government will not recognise the marriage. Any children would be illegitimate under French law."

Pausing with his hand on the door, Bill responded in as level a tone as he could manage. "I knew what I was doing and I know she did, too. It may have been wrong, but I do not regret it."

Bill quickly closed the door behind him and propped himself against the wall of the corridor outside. It was only two more days until Ginny's wedding. He would not let Gwen's family ruin Ginny's day. He couldn't open the owl and it might be dangerous to ignore it, since Gwen's mother might be planning to come reclaim her daughter soon. He would have to take it to Gwen even though it would probably destroy the little bit of composure that Gwen had been able to manage the last two days since she arrived back at the Burrow.

Bill climbed the stairs and walked down the corridor to Ginny's door. He could hear the laughter of four girls as well as Ginny's voice and paused for a moment before he knocked. He heard a trill of laughter and then Ginny's voice call out, "Who is it?"

"Me, Gin."

The door was opened by a short, blond girl that Bill knew as Cassiopeia, who said with a giggle, "Hi, Bill."

Bill looked round the room at the girls who were all lounging facing Ginny, who was seated in the middle on a pile of cushions. "Sorry to interrupt, Gin, but Gwenaëlle got an owl so I thought I would bring it up to her."

Ginny's face immediately showed concern, but Gwen stood up quickly and said, "I'll be back in a minute, Ginny. Did you want me to bring up some more cake?"

One of the other girls said immediately, "Yes, and more juice. I'm parched."

Gwen smiled at Ginny and stepped over one of the other girl's legs as she moved to the door. Once outside in the corridor, Gwen closed the door quickly and turned to Bill with a tiny gasp. "Who is it from?"

Bill gestured that they should move away from the door, so Gwen followed him down to what had once been his and Charlie's room. Bill opened the door and waited for Gwen to enter before he carefully shut the door and placed a silencing charm on it.

Bill held out the sealed parchment scroll saying, "Your mother. She knows."

Gwen read the name on the owl and looked at Bill with troubled eyes before she placed her thumb over the seal, which immediately cracked open. Bill put his hand on her shoulder and tried to press her down into a chair, and when she resisted he said, "Sit down, love."

Gwen complied and after reading what her mother had written, said shakily, "Oh it is awful, Bill. Horrid."

Bill's stiff posture drooped as he said, "Tell me what she is saying, please. I need to know."

Gwen handed it to him. "She is expecting me to show it to you. She wrote it in English, since she doesn't know you can read French."

Bill took the parchment from her and began to scowl as he read what Marc'harit Gurley had written to her daughter. "It is about is bad as we had feared."

"The Central Ministry must have reported it."

"We knew that they would, Gwenaëlle. There was a very slim chance of it not happening. I have been surprised that it has taken this long."

"Uncle Gwezheneg is going to come over."

"Yes, but that was to be expected too, love."

"I won't let them ruin Ginny's wedding. If they come now then it will destroy everything for her."

Bill nodded. "I am going to request a meeting for Saturday. Ginny and Harry will be in Cornwall and the guests will be gone. Your family will want time for your mother and your uncle to talk after he arrives, so hopefully they will agree."

Gwen reached for the parchment and Bill handed it back to her. "I hope so, Bill. What are we going to do when we do meet with them? They are threatening to…"

Bill placed his hand back on her shoulder and said, "Yes, but I will not allow that to happen. They will not find me an easy wizard to overcome and I won't allow them to take you back with them, Gwenaëlle."

Gwen stood up so that she was so close to Bill that he could not see her face. Unsure what she would allow him to do, Bill touched his hand tentatively to her back and said, "If you know something, anything that I should expect, then you must tell me. I have read a little about your traditions, but you are the one who really knows, love."

Gwen moved infinitesimally closer to Bill and said, "We have two choices, I suppose. Either we choose to act as though we assume that the marriage is accepted and we make it clear that you have taken me over or else we stay apart and we take a repentant stance and ask for them to agree to the marriage. In that case you would remember that I still belong to my family."

Bill took a deep breath and said gruffly, "I won't do that, Gwenaëlle. I would like for them to agree to accept us, but I won't pretend that I will bow to their wishes. No matter what they decide you will remain married to me, as far as I am concerned. If you have changed your mind then that is different, but I am not going to pretend anything." Bill could feel that Gwen had relaxed slightly so he raised his hand to her head and lightly stroked his hand once along her hair.

"I had hoped you would say that. I think to do anything else would be cowardly. But you understand that you will have to make it very clear that you have taken me over, Bill."

Bill pulled himself back so that he could look into Gwen's face. "I suppose I do know what you mean, but I do not like the idea that you are considered a possession, Gwenaëlle. I am not comfortable with that aspect of your culture."

Gwen bit her lip before she said, "Whether you like it or not you are responsible for me now. You may choose for us to act like equals but legally we are not. You have to understand that or you won't ever understand anything. If my family believes that you cannot handle me then they will feel that you are not a very capable wizard, no matter how many societies and councils you belong to, Bill."

Bill stepped back further so he could comfortably look at Gwen as he asked seriously, "I expected that, Gwenaëlle, but what I need to know is whether you think that, too."

Gwen did not look at him for a moment before finally responding, "I know that English wizards are different. I understand that. I do not expect for you to act like a Breton wizard or even a French one. I believe that you are a _very_ skilful wizard, Bill."

Bill set his jaw grimly. She _did_ expect for him to begin acting more like a very old-fashioned, pureblood wizard husband. She actually wanted for him to expect her to follow his orders. He had not imagined that her thoughts were so ingrained in the archaic Breton world that she would not consider herself a wizard's equal. This was going to cause definite problems.

"I will write to your uncle and request a meeting with him and your mother. You had better go back in with Ginny before they get worried."

Gwen nodded and turned to leave.

"If you wait here, I will apparate down and get the cake and juice, so they will not be suspicious that you have been gone so long."

Gwen replied softly, "Alright, thank you." She sat down on the bed to wait and leant somewhat forlornly against the bed post as Bill raised his wand and turned round to apparate to the kitchen.


	10. Chapter 10

Just in case anyone was wondering: I have no relation or connexion whatsoever to Ms Rowling, Bloomsbury, Scholastic, or Warner Brothers. Everything here is done merely for fun and never for profit.

* * *

Elisabeth curled up with the stack of cushions she had propped up against the headboard of the bed and breathed out happily. "It was so beautiful, Gwen. I don't ever remember seeing a wizard so in love before. I think he looked as if he had been handed heaven on a platter." 

Gwen nodded seriously and replied, "Harry Potter is a very lucky wizard, Elisabeth. She loves him just as much as he does her. That doesn't often happen."

Elisabeth sighed again. "I thought it was the most romantic wedding I'd ever seen."

Gwen huddled herself against her legs, which she had pulled up to her chin. "Yes, well perhaps you will be that lucky, too, Elisabeth."

Elisabeth frowned. "Was I being insensitive, Gwen? I don't know what to say to you about your engagement and what your wedding would be like. You never want to talk about it. You are always so gloomy whenever I discuss love that you make me feel as if you have got engaged to a lethifold or something. Won't you even tell me about the wizard you decided to marry?"

Gwen pressed her cheek against her knees and looked away from Elisabeth at the mirrored front to Elisabeth's wardrobe. "He is an extremely powerful warlock, I think. I expect he is much more intelligent and talented than many people know."

Elisabeth seemed uncertain whether being an overly powerful warlock was a good quality in a husband, but she could gather that Gwen felt that it was a completely essential requirement. "What else? Is he handsome? How old is he? What is his name?"

"He isn't handsome really, no. He is 11 years older than I am, I think."

"What does he do?"

"He is working in the financial industry, which is all that I want to say about it."

"You won't even tell me his name?"

Gwen shook her head. "I don't want to talk about it at all, Elisabeth."

"Why do you have to keep it so secret? You can trust me to understand, Gwen. We've always trusted each other."

Gwen turned her eyes on Elisabeth and after a long pause answered, "His name is William. I cannot tell you about it, Elisabeth. Please don't push me to tell you."

"William? But that is an English name."

"Would you prefer to pronounce it in _Brezhoneg_?"

"No. I thought, oh for a moment I had a very odd thought."

Gwen closed her eyes and put her head back down onto her knees. "Did you?"

Elisabeth gasped. "Oh! Gwen, oh my goodness. You are going to marry Bill. That is why you are afraid of your mother coming! I didn't think that you even knew how he felt about you."

Gwen did not raise her head. "I'm not blind."

"But you never told me that you loved him. How could you have kept all this secret for so long?"

"There hasn't been anything to keep secret until recently. He didn't do anything. He just hung back and acted sad and did _nothing_ whilst I anguished over how I was going to escape the situation with my family. He wouldn't have said anything either if I hadn't done something."

Elisabeth was staring with sad fascination at her friend. "You did?"

"Yes, I went out after you two had gone to sleep because I knew that he had gone for a walk and I made certain that he saw me."

"Oh, I thought you meant that you told him how you felt, since he had not done anything."

Gwen angrily bit out, "I would never do anything so bold. I would rather have married Maël Besnard even."

Elisabeth sighed and shook her head in disbelief. "I didn't think so. You think that showing your _ankles_ is indecent. You know that Bill probably had no more idea that you were interested than I did."

Gwen's brows pulled together as she asked, "Well if he wasn't wizard enough to do something about what he wanted then why would I want him? He had to be the one to do it, Elisabeth. You do see that at least, don't you?"

Elisabeth wiped a stray hair from her face and said seriously, "I suppose that I do, since I've known you forever. But are you sure that he can live up to your standards, Gwen? You have quite a strict list of expectations and not many of them will come naturally to an English wizard. He may not have any idea what you want him to do."

Gwen shrugged her shoulders. "I know that he is ridiculously English. Also, he does not like the idea that I actually belong to him now, he told me so. He thinks it is wrong. It is very sweet, but he will just have to learn to accept it."

Elisabeth was startled into asking sharply, "What do you mean exactly that you belong to him?"

Gwen waved her hand as if in defeat. "I mean that an adult Breton witch is treated very much like a child according to our laws. Once she is married, her guardianship passes to her husband, Elisabeth."

Elisabeth almost choked as she gasped. "You already married him! You are married?"

"Yes."

"When? No wait. The day you collected the trollywollop eggs. That was why they were so clean." Elisabeth pointed an accusatory finger at Gwen and exclaimed, "You bought them!"

Gwen sighed. "I didn't think of that. I _normally_ would have thought of that. Yes, I bought them."

Elisabeth shook her head and stared at her friend. "I don't know what to say, Gwen. I thought we were best friends. You could have trusted me not to tell."

Gwen groaned as she held her head in her hands and said, "I couldn't. I was already abusing your family's hospitality, since they had promised Mother that they would act as my chaperones whilst I stayed in Britain. Then I ran off and got married, almost the worst thing I could have done when I was under your mother's care. I couldn't make you a party to that. It wouldn't have been fair."

Elisabeth stared back at her friend. "You should have told me."

"No, I couldn't. Bill only told one person – his friend who acted as our witness. No one else knows, not even his family."

Elisabeth asked, "Why are you keeping it secret? You can't keep it quiet forever."

Gwen answered unhappily, "No, my mother has found out already. Somehow Bill arranged a meeting for tomorrow. We were so worried that Mother would come and ruin everything for Ginny by making a scene before the wedding was over. I cannot imagine what he did to convince them to wait, frankly."

Elisabeth looked sternly at her friend for several moments before she repeated, "You should have told me, Gwen."

Gwen's voice cracked slightly and her eyes began to tear as she responded, "I am sorry, Elisabeth. You don't know how much I wanted to tell you. It has been hellish worrying this all out alone, but I didn't have any choice. You do understand what I've done, Elisabeth, don't you? I've turned my back on my family and _everything_."

Elisabeth's expression softened and she reached out her arms to hug her friend. "Yes, you have, haven't you? I had no idea what you were going through all this time."

Gwen returned her friend's embrace and tried desperately to reign herself in before finally losing complete control. What began as a husky sob soon turned into a torrent of messy tears as Gwen clung to her best friend.

Elisabeth held on to Gwen and tried to sooth her. Yet since she had never before seen Gwen cry, she had no idea what to say. It was clear to Elisabeth that Gwen was scared that she had made a very foolish choice and Elisabeth, although she had always liked Bill Weasley, wondered if perhaps Gwen was right.

* * *

"Here is the response Uncle Astaric sent. I'll be honest with you, Bill. He thinks that you have made a very grave error. You've insulted the family, essentially, by disgracing their daughter." 

Bill pushed his empty glass aside with an angry slap and picked up the tightly scrolled parchment from the pub table. "I haven't disgraced her; that is bollocks. One moment these people seem to realise that she is a very special witch that is worthy of the best possible wizard, but then they auction her off to the highest bidders. That is all the choice she has – from those or no one. It disgusting, especially all this rubbish about how she is essentially a possession and therefore has no ability to make her own decisions. That is unbelievable even for the French."

Anders nodded, "I agree with you and so would most French wizards, I think. But the Breton don't care a toss what any of us think, Bill, especially you since they probably think that you are exactly the sort of wizard from whom they are 'protecting' their innocent daughters from marrying with these laws."

Bill growled and shot back another glass of black aquavit. "What do they think happened? Do they imagine I dragged her off into the hills and seduced her with my wicked English ways until she would run off and marry me in that dingy Ministry office?"

"Yes, probably. They don't actually have any way of knowing what happened, Bill. They don't know you, but they will have done some intelligence work and sorted out that you are a warlock with an order of Merlin, first class, so you are capable of getting what you want by force. They will know that you were a curse breaker, which you have to admit is a profession with a slight bit of a reputation. They'll know about the attack, but won't have any idea how dangerous or werewolfish you actually may be. Admit that you are not precisely what they had in mind for her."

Bill ran his fingers roughly through his hair. "I'm nothing at all like what they wanted. I know that. But that doesn't make it any easier for me to be essentially called a kidnapper and a rapist. You should have read what that woman wrote to her daughter. It was the coldest thing I have ever seen."

Anders pressed his lips together and lifted his glass. Bill saw his friend's reluctance to speak and picked up the parchment from Anders' great-uncle. "Go ahead and say it, Anders."

"Probably better that I don't."

Bill shook his head and pushed himself back into the bench cushion. "Just tell me what it is you are thinking."

Anders drained his glass and set it next to another two empties. "It is easy to understand why she wanted to escape, especially when she had someone who was willing to do anything to get her. I hope that you knew what you were doing when you agreed to this, Bill."

Bill did not say anything for several moments as he turned his head and gazed over to where the serving witch was standing by the bar. "I did know that I was jumping feet first over a steep cliff without any idea what I was going to find below. At least I did know that the family problems would be severe."

Anders fingered his battered silver case, turning it over in his hand repeatedly until he said, "But you don't know about her."

"No."

"I was afraid that you had overlooked…"

Bill interrupted, still without looking away from the crowd at the bar, "No, I knew that she might just be running away to the only escape she could find."

"And if that turns out to be so?"

"Then I am merely one in a long history of men who love their wives a great deal more than their wives love them."

Anders looked away from Bill at the empty glasses in front of him. "I am sorry, mate."

Bill cleared his throat and turned back to the table and picked up the scroll again. "I knew what I was doing. Now I have to face the music, beginning with meeting her family tomorrow."

"My uncle didn't give much advice. I think he disapproved too strongly of what you did, but read it anyway and see if it helps somehow."

Bill perused the contents of the letter and then set it down on the table. "Not much help, no. I doubt that there is much that can be done. I think the only course of action is a show of force."

Anders frowned. "You think that a pissing contest between you and the uncle is going to help?"

Bill shrugged. "The way she talks about it, I have to act the part. They are looking to see if I come up to scratch, so I just have to, that's all."

* * *

The door was opened to him by the same disgruntled house elf that he had seen several months before. However this time, Badger did not bow. The elf waited for Bill to take his cloak off and snapped his fingers for the cloak to disappear. He then wordlessly led Bill down towards the sitting room where he had taken tea when he had last come to the house.

From the moment that he entered the room he knew that the situation had gone poorly for Gwen and that things were not looking good for him either. Catriona MacLeod was standing with her hands on her hips, clearly waiting for Bill to enter, and Leoben MacLeod had chosen not to stand.

In all the years that his sister had been friends with Elisabeth MacLeod, Bill had met her family numerous times and thought that they were very kind, friendly people. But the manner in which Catriona MacLeod addressed him as he walked over to where Gwen was sitting made it clear that he had disappointed them perhaps beyond repair.

"William, we have just been speaking to Gwenaëlle. She has told us that the two of you eloped via a Ministry marriage during the time that she was staying at your parents' home."

Bill clenched his fists briefly and spoke as evenly as possible. "Yes, that is right."

"Were you aware that Leoben and I were acting as her chaperones and guardians whilst her family was out of the country?"

"Yes, I am afraid that I was."

"Yet you did not think about the position that you and Gwen were putting us in, nor did you consider approaching us to inform us what you were going to do."

"No, I was not thinking about your position. I was concerned more about Gwenaëlle's, although I am aware that I have embarrassed you with her family. I am truly sorry for that, Mrs MacLeod."

Leoben MacLeod opened his mouth to speak and placed a hand on his wife's arm to silence her. "I am glad that you are aware of what you have done, William, since you are going to have to find a way to explain yourself to the girl's family. Our family has cared very much for Gwenaëlle over the years that she has been close to our daughter. However, although I sympathise with her distaste for her situation, William, legally it was her parent's right to make this choice for her. I cannot condone what you both have done."

Bill nodded and turned to Gwen, who had not moved since he had entered the room. She was seated so that she was facing him and was gripping the arm of her chair with both hands. Bill gave Gwen a small smile before answering, "I understand sir, but I am not sorry for it nonetheless. I think that it is best that we leave now, sir."

Leoben MacLeod stood from his chair and said more gently, "Yes, that would probably be best. Elisabeth has told the house elf to bring down Gwenaëlle's things, so you may tell him where to forward them when you leave."

Bill nodded shortly and then placed his hand over Gwen's clenched white one and said softly, "Come on, love. We need to go."

Gwen looked up at him with wide eyes and then stood resolutely to face her friend's parents. "Thank you for allowing me to stay with you Mr and Mrs MacLeod. I really am sorry to have caused you trouble."

Bill put his hand on Gwen's elbow and bowed slightly at the MacLeods before forcefully manoeuvring Gwen out of the room.

When they reached the entry hall, Elisabeth was standing beside a pile of luggage holding the cage for Gwen's cat. Elisabeth shoved the cage into Bill's hands with a look that clearly spoke her opinion of him and threw her arms around her best friend's neck. "It will be alright, Gwen. Your family will have to understand eventually. I'm sure your father won't let your mother disown you."

Gwen did not speak as she tightly hugged her friend. When she pulled back she said only, "I will owl you. I have told your parents that you didn't know anything."

Elisabeth kissed Gwen's cheek and asked Bill coldly, "Where do I tell Badger to send all of this?"

Bill transferred the cage with the howling cat to his non-wand hand and replied, "I will forward it." As soon as the pile of luggage had disappeared, Bill turned back to Gwen and said gently, "You need to put your cloak on, love."

Elisabeth held out Gwen's cloak and Gwen hastily fastened the small pewter buttons with a shaky hand. "I think I should take Alaric. He won't be quiet if you are holding him."

Bill tapped his wand on the cage, effecting a silencing charm, and answered seriously, "I can manage the cat. Are you ready to go, Gwenaëlle?"

"Are we going straight there?"

"Yes."

Gwen took a deep breath and pulled out her wand before saying with determination, "I am ready."


	11. Chapter 11

Bill had not spoken to her since they had left the small sitting room where they had met with her uncle, her mother, and her cousin. They had been walking for almost a mile without Gwen having any idea where they were going. Her own thoughts were so confused and jumbled as to what had happened that she didn't know what she ought to say. She wasn't even sure what the result of the meeting had been. Gwen felt Bill's hand tighten on her arm and saw that he was directing her to step up, as there was a kerb ahead.

"Careful." Bill spoke quietly as Gwen almost tripped and then turned his eyes back to the road ahead and away from her.

But now that he had said something, Gwen had to ask. She did not know whether he was angry with her or merely digesting the results of the meeting, but she had to know what he was thinking. "Bill?"

Stopping immediately and looking down at her, Bill replied, "Yes?"

"What are we doing?"

"Going home, unless there is something else we need to do first."

"No, but I wish you would talk to me."

Bill set down the cat cage and sighed. "That went very badly, didn't it?"

"I don't know. I'm not so sure it did."

Bill raised his eyebrows and tilted his head as he asked, "Really?"

"Well you cowed Yaguel immediately. He was in awe of you, actually. You don't know Yaguel, but he is the worst bully of all my cousins and that is really quite a statement."

Bill's face expressed disgust, "Your cousin is a weasel. I know his type very well. But the real decision rests with your uncle, doesn't it? No matter what your mother thinks, his decision will be final, won't it?"

Gwen nodded. "Yes, of course. She wouldn't dare go against Uncle, unless maybe it had something to do with Father's health. Uncle Gwezheneg didn't react to you at all like I expected."

Bill took a deep breath and put his hand out to prop himself against the low wooden fence beside the road. "I don't know your uncle of course, Gwenaëlle, but it seemed to me that the man I just met hated me."

"I don't think it was hate, I think it was anger. He is furious that his will was countermanded. He is incredibly angry that you dared to step in and steal me from underneath his nose. But I really think that you made him respect you, which was what I was saying you would have to manage to achieve. I wasn't sure that you could be like that, Bill."

Bill seemed to be struggling with himself as he asked, "And are you glad to know that I can?"

Gwen shook her head, "Yes, but it didn't seem like you."

Bill swallowed hard and said tersely, "I hope not."

Gwen lowered her eyes from Bill's intense gaze and began to pick at the sleeve to her robe.

Bill reached out his hand and placed it under her chin to gently raise it so that she was looking at him again. "Have I won your respect, too, Gwenaëlle? That is more important to me than whether your uncle thinks that I am a real wizard or a gormless squib."

Gwen looked down uncomfortably and said, "You didn't have to win my respect, Bill. You already had it or I would not have married you."

Bill shook his head. "No, love, that is not true. I was putting on a display back there just as much to win you as I was to convince your uncle of anything. Let us be honest with each other."

When Gwen did not answer Bill picked her hand up in his and waited until she said thickly, "Yes, you did."

"Then it was worth it. Do you want to go home now?"

Gwen nodded. Bill picked up the cage, turned back to the road, and held out his free hand to her. Gwen started to go to him and then suddenly stopped. In a wobbly voice she asked, "You are happy that we did this, Bill?"

Bill dropped his hand and looked at her for a moment before saying, "I do not regret the marriage, Gwenaëlle. I am aware that an elopement was the only way that I could have got you. But there hasn't been much to be happy about yet, has there?"

Gwen wrapped her arms round herself and shook her head.

"I am hoping that will all change now that everything is out in the open and there isn't any reason for us to stay apart. Do you think that we shall find something to be happy about now, love?" Bill was standing very close to her as he talked.

Gwen replied uncertainly, "I hope so."

Bill smiled down at her and said softly, "Should we try side-along apparation then?"

"Oh, can you?"

Bill nodded. "I should think so. All it needs is additional concentration and will. But if you are too nervous about it then we can summon the Knight Bus."

Gwen lifted her hand to his chest briefly and said, "No, I trust you."

* * *

"I never realised that I was so wand-dependant." 

Elisabeth dropped her wand and turned about to face Gwen, who was reading the label on a bottle of anti-doxy powder. "You don't have to use a wand for everything. I'm sure you will find ways to do things without."

"It took me an hour to do the washing up this morning. Bill won't let me do it the muggle way when he's here – he just does the spell for me. But I don't like that he has to help."

Elisabeth looked at her nails with embarrassment, unsure what to say. "It is sweet that he wants to help though, Gwen. I think many wizards would let you do it all and not worry about how you did it."

"He tried letting me use his wand to do up the draperies, which honestly Elisabeth could that witch have chosen anything uglier? But our magic isn't terribly compatible apparently, because I had to concentrate like a first year to control his wand."

Elisabeth cast a glance over at the dark green curtains and said uneasily, "He must be very powerful to have such a difficult wand."

"Yes, he is. I don't think I'll use his wand very often. It was too much effort."

"Do you plan to redo the house or just rearrange everything?"

Gwen made a face at the gaudy umbrella stand in the corner. "I don't think he has very much gold for me to buy new things, Elisabeth. In any case, he loved her and so he won't like me coming in and getting rid of everything she bought for their home all at once. It will have to be a gradual eradication, I think."

"At least the mirror."

"Oh heavens, yes. That stupid thing must be charmed to tell her that she was the most beautiful witch of all or something, because do you know what it said to me this morning?"

Elisabeth shook her head.

"It said, 'It is unfortunate about that nose, my dear. However not every witch can be born with the features of a goddess.'"

Elisabeth burst out laughing. "Oh Gwen it didn't!"

Gwen looked rather miffed as she replied, "I rather like my nose. Now if the mirror had commented about my eyes or my pasty complexion…"

Elisabeth gasped as she tried to stop laughing. "When you were out of the room…it..it said to me that it was so sorry that I had such splotchy skin and recommended a 'Glowing Beauty' potion."

Gwen snorted. "That thing goes today. The mirror and those cushions. I never knew it was possible to have so many tassels, cords, and tufts on one little square pillow."

Elisabeth took a deep breath to keep herself from laughing again. "If you weren't here I would say it must be French style."

Appreciating her friend's return to their familiar joke, Gwen smiled and said, "Yes we French do like our houses to look as though we are half blind and quite demented."

"I thought so. Do you want me to help with the doxy powder or should I go back and finish finding places for all those books?"

"I can do the powder - no wand required. If you could help rid the floor of all those stacks then I'll promise you a chocolate tart when you come tomorrow."

Elisabeth gaily replied, "Consider it done."

* * *

Bill woke suddenly with the knowledge that something was definitely wrong. As he groped under his pillow for his wand and sat up in the bed, he saw his wife's cat standing at the foot of the bed, staring at him. Ignoring Alaric, who still disliked Bill with a passion, Bill slid from the bed and shoved his feet into slippers and moved across the floor to the door. As soon as he opened it, however, Bill could hear angry voices coming from the sitting room. He could recognise one as Gwen, who was speaking furiously in a mixture of French patois and the strange, harsh Breton form of Gaelic.

As he reached the sitting room he heard Gwen shout something that sounded like, "Avat! Me karout ma gwaz, Mammig! Il faut q'vous le comp'nez. M'n'regrette rien sauf q'on blessa Tadig."

He could not understand the shrill tones of the other witch's voice, but he was certain that Gwen was speaking to her mother via floo and that the conversation was about him.

Gwen responded unintelligibly in a rough, guttural voice that was unlike anything that Bill had ever imagined coming from her. He could now hear the other woman better and did not need a translation to understand the gist of what was probably being said. It seemed that Gwen had not heard or seen him enter the room, so Bill propped himself up against the wall and looked into the flames at the face of the woman who was speaking.

However Marc'harit Gurley had apparently seen him, because at a word from her Gwen spun round on her heels and gasped, "Bill! Me croya q'vo dorma encore. Si vo me laissa discuter 'vec Mammig, t'plait?"

Understanding her patois enough to grasp that Gwen was asking him to please allow her to speak to her mother in private, Bill shook his head. Speaking clearly and loudly in French so that Gwen's mother would have no excuse to misunderstand, Bill said, "Dame Marc'harit, I know that I explained very clearly when we met that I would not allow for you or any of your family to bully Gwenaëlle, assault her, or cause her any further distress. I specifically asked you not to contact your family either, Gwen."

Gwen stepped back slightly from Bill and replied in English, "I am sorry, Bill. I didn't actually contact her - Mother requested that I wait for her to floo me tonight, so that she could discuss Father's condition."

Bill frowned. "If that were so then there was no reason to hide it from me was there? Is your father doing any better?"

"No. They are leaving to come back to Wales. Mother has got her residency permit."

Bill turned back to the flames and gestured with his wand to end the floo connexion. "Now what was that really about, Gwen?"

"Well she said that she wanted to talk to me about Father."

"But you knew that was not all she would want to discuss. Why didn't you tell me that she was going to floo here tonight?"

Gwen bit her lip and hesitated before admitting, "Because if you didn't know about it then you couldn't actually forbid me to talk to her."

Bill made a gesture of real frustration. "I don't want to forbid you to do anything. I want to discuss things like adults and come to mutual decisions, Gwen. I only asked you not to talk to them because we agreed that it would be better if you didn't."

Gwen did not speak. Bill stood watching her whilst she looked at him as if she were waiting for something.

"Don't you understand that you could very well have made your mother angry enough that she will decide to apply restrictions against you? It is better for neither of us to interact with your family, Gwen."

Gwen looked over at the fireplace, which now contained only a few glowing coals, and then turned away from Bill.

"Don't turn away from me, Gwenaëlle. Tell me what you needed to say to your mother that was important enough to risk talking to her again."

Gwen turned round and looked at Bill unhappily. "I don't know. I shouldn't have. I'm sorry."

"Did she say something that I ought to know about or was it all the same things I've already heard?"

Gwen's expression changed and she looked almost hopefully at Bill. "You didn't hear what we said?"

"I understood very little, since you were not speaking in French most of the time."

Gwen walked forward so that she was standing close enough that her forehead was touching his chest. "It was mostly more of the same."

Bill wrapped his arms round his wife and said exhaustedly, "Please don't talk to her again, love. It doesn't help anything and it upsets you too much."

"You're right, Bill. I won't."

Bill did not feel like there had been any real victory for either him or Gwen in their conversation, but was too tired to want to spend any more time talking. "Will you come back with me to bed?"

"Yes, Bill. Me skuizh."

Having no idea what she had just said, Bill kissed the top of Gwen's head and directed her towards the bedroom.

* * *

Gwen stared down at the parchment that was in her hands and then looked over at Bill, who appeared to be completely adsorbed in his book. Ginny's owl had been polite, but not friendly. It was clear that Gwen was not forgiven and that Ginny was not particularly interested in mending fences yet. Gwen fingered the strange new wand in her pocket and considered whether there was anything that could be done. Deciding that there was not, Gwen sent the parchment to the fire with the wand, noting that even with a week's practise she still felt like a novice.

Bill had told her that unregistered wands were notoriously rough to learn to control. It was possible to do even very powerful spells with them, since they harnessed raw power well, but rarely could one do the most delicate spells. That morning had proven Bill right - Gwen had tried to set her hair into plaits, but had not been able to control the weave and had given it up.

"Has your control improved at all?"

Gwen looked up from her lap and saw that Bill was no longer reading and had turned all of his attention on her. "Not much. I suppose that it takes time. But at least I can really perform spells unlike with your wand."

"That was because centaur and merman hair wands are particularly difficult, since both are sentient creatures. Yours has three unicorn hairs, so it should be somewhat better at fine magic than most unregistered wands. At least that was my hope when I got it."

Gwen nodded and wondered again how much money he had been forced to pay to procure a wand for her. She had not wanted to ask him, since it might seem that she was ungrateful, but she wondered if he had spent most of his savings just to get her a wand.

"My father checked with the Ministry again. There are still no sanctions or restrictions applied to you by the Central Ministry."

"I suppose that means that they are not going to publicly denounce us. They would have done so by now. But I am afraid that they aren't going to acknowledge us either, which means that they could still hold this over our heads."

"My father researched the statutes on that as well. The Central Ministry gives Breton families a year to either approve or refuse the marriages of their children. After that the Central Ministry will consider all marriages valid, no matter what Breton officials might do."

"Are you sure?"

"Yes. They can choose not to officially approve and after a year it is essentially accepted as a fait accompli. You will be able to travel into France, if not Brittany, and you could openly use a wand again without any fear."

"Do you think that they will choose to do that?"

Bill nodded his head. "If they publicly denounce the marriage then it harms their social status by reflection. I pointed that out to your uncle, if you remember. I think that they are going to ignore us, although your mother may still try to do me more harm. It is lucky for me that goblins don't care a damn about anything other than the fact that I make them money. Were I working for wizards we would not have been so lucky."

"They are still going to transfer you back into curse breaking, Bill?"

Bill smiled at her. "I made loads more gold for them as a curse breaker. I could have had my old job back at any time; in fact they have been pressuring me for months."

"I am glad. You hate the other job."

Bill stood up and moved closer to where she was sitting. "No, but it was very dull. I will have to return to it eventually."

Gwen allowed Bill to stroke her cheek lovingly as she asked, "Why?"

Frowning, Bill replied seriously, "As I have said before, I think that it will eventually get old for you following me round the world to whatever job I am working on. If there are ever children, you won't want them raised in that environment, love."

"Why not?"

Bill drew his hand through her hair and said with an edge to his voice, "We don't need to discuss that again right now, Gwen."

Gwen looked up at him and nodded acquiescence. After a moment of silence she said suddenly, "Are you hungry?"

"Very."

Gwen stood up and deftly avoided his grasp with a smile as she said, "I had planned to make krampouezh. Hopefully I won't burn them with this wand."

"Crepes sound wonderful. Do you want me to do a fry up whilst you cook them?"

Gwen shrugged her shoulders, "No, I made a soup earlier."

Bill did not completely manage to suppress an urge to grimace, but Gwen did not choose engage him again on his opinions on Breton-style stews.


	12. Chapter 12

Bill looked over the table at his brothers, who were both slumped against the bench across from him with empty mugs in their hands. As they sat silently, George finally took out a large silver case and offered it to Ron, who took it with a nod. Wondering if it was his own heavy usage of sand needle that had encouraged Ron to start, Bill sighed deeply. "Not that I'm a good role model, Ron, but you shouldn't."

Ron looked up in surprise. George spoke acerbically, "No, you aren't one to talk, Bill. Don't tell me you aren't up to three packets a week, because I know better. I buy mine at the same apothecary you do and Snodgrass told me."

Ron's hand seemed to waver as he held a small pinch of sand needle in his fingers. Bill continued with what he had been trying to say. "It is very hard to quit, Ron. It isn't physically addicting like muggle tobacco, but you get very used to the effects. Trust me, don't."

Ron dropped the pinch back into the box and said gruffly, "Harry uses more than you do, Bill."

"I know. We have discussed it."

"At your Andromeda meetings no doubt, right."

George took the unused case back from Ron and quickly put a sizeable quantity of the contents to use whilst glaring at his elder brother.

Bill gestured to the serving witch before replying, "I told you that I would sponsor you, Ron. You have more than enough raw power."

Ron looked away from Bill and shook his head. "Promised Hermione I wouldn't."

George choked slightly as he placed the empty mug back on the table, having tried to drain it of its last drops. He looked meaningfully at Bill.

Bill asked Ron seriously, "How is training going? Anders told me that you are extremely promising at strategy."

Ron looked slightly gratified, but then added sourly, "Auror Anders has given me a lot of attention, actually. If I don't do a spell perfectly on first try he makes me practise until I can do it nonverbal."

Bill nodded, "Not surprised. I told him that if he got you killed I would rip him to shreds with my hands."

George snorted, "Same thing I told Kenneth. But he's been giving me pretty decent reports about our Ron here."

Bill laughed. "Anders told me that Trowler came in looking like he'd been bullied within an inch. I think you must have threatened worse than I did."

"Not exactly, but let's say it had its effect. Don't want ickle Ronniekins here getting hurt now would we?"

Ron's face was flushed a brilliant red and both Bill and George laughed as he muttered something about 'overprotective gits'.

After the serving witch had placed a new bottle of black aquavit next to Bill and full mugs of beer in front of George and Ron, Ron changed the subject by saying, "Harry told me that Ginny went to see her yesterday."

Bill's eyes darted to his brother's face briefly and then returned to focussing on the bottle he was unscrewing. "Yes. I think Mum had something to do with that."

George grunted. "No doubt."

Ron shook his head. "No, it was Harry. She wouldn't listen to anyone else."

Bill nodded and admitted, "Probably true. Time was Ginny would have listened to me, but I barely rate a kiss on the cheek these days."

George took another long drink from his dark brown beer. "You know things would be different, Bill, if Ginny thought that Gwen really…"

"Don't say it." Bill had spoken the words with an angry challenge glittering in his eyes.

George shrugged, but he didn't look away from Bill's gaze as he took another sip of beer.

"Ginny, you, or anyone else can learn to deal with my marriage no matter what your opinions are. But not a word about her, George, not now or ever."

George did not respond, so Bill looked away to Ron. Ron said calmly, "I wouldn't say anything, Bill."

* * *

Bill glanced at the almost empty bottle of Feldon'sthat Anders was tipping towards a just emptied glass. If he came home drunk again it would not go well with Gwen. She had frozen him out for an entire day the last time he had returned home obviously worse for the wear. 

However once Anders finished pouring his own and tipped the bottle towards Bill, there was no hesitation as Bill lifted his glass and nodded.

"Not going well with the trial, of course. Seems that my boss isn't content with me having got the Tavoillot brothers. No, it is now my responsibility to get the manky sods convicted."

Bill shook his head. "And not much help from Kent now that he fulfilled his end of the bargain."

"Nope, not a toss. Kent got Dalgliesh safely to the Isle of Man, where he can't be touched. Wouldn't be any use threatening Kent's sister again either, since if I do I'm likely to wake up somewhat less of a man, which Angela wouldn't like."

Bill grimaced. "He'd do it, too. I remember too well what he got up to at school."

"As do I. Nasty bastard, not afraid to do whatever he must to get what he wants."

"No, although to be fair he does have morals. Violently opposed to harming anyone who hasn't done anything to him or his family."

Anders grunted. "I keep forgetting you know him so well."

Bill set down his glass with a bang. "Watch it, Gricius."

Anders slumped back against his chair. "Don't know how you can deal with the Andromeda crowd. Sometimes makes me wonder a little, Bill."

Bill spoke very slowly and succinctly, his eyes boring into Anders' own. "If you have something to say then now is the time, Gricius."

Anders looked away from Bill's intense gaze and allowed his shoulders to droop. "Never mind. I'm drunk."

"Say what you are thinking. I'm waiting."

Anders let out a loud puff of air as he leaned forward and put his head in his hands. "Nothing to say. Just starting to feel a little bloody minded about anything that has to do with this case. That and I'm regally pissed. You are nothing like Kent or Shipley."

The fire in Bill's eyes extinguished itself as he also looked away and picked up his glass. "If you ever have any misgivings about me Anders, I want you to address them to me personally. I don't need there to be any doubts. Not between us, mate."

"God, no. We are almost all that's left of the old crowd, Bill, the core group at least. Six of us knocked down to just two."

Bill shot back the remainder of his drink. "That is what I am saying. It doesn't matter what happens, Anders."

* * *

As he opened the door to the kitchen quietly and slipped inside, Bill listened carefully, hoping that he would not hear any sounds coming from the rest of the house. Feeling hopeful, since everything seemed remarkably quiet, Bill began to take off his cloak and wonder what had made him order the second bottle. Even with the four of them sharing it, Bill had imbibed far too much. He was dead drunk and he had to be at the bank early in the morning. Without a doubt it would be another day that started with some Pepper-up potion. 

Tossing his cloak onto the chair just inside the sitting room, Bill practically fell onto his favourite chair by the smouldering fire. He had been married to Gwen now for four days longer than his entire marriage to Fleur. By contrast that short, beautiful time with Fleur seemed incredibly far away and was shrinking into the distance more with each passing day.

Bill pulled a cushion out from behind his back and tossed it onto the floor with a grunt. Gwen had been remarkably restrained about getting rid of the things he had purchased with Fleur, but he had begun to wonder whether he wanted them any longer himself. His marriage to Gwen was more often painful than good and nothing that belonged to his life with Fleur seemed to fit him anymore.

He slunk deeper into the chair and considered whether it would be better to build up the fire or just sit there as the room got progressively colder. His head was spinning slightly and he was not too steady on his feet. The chair seemed as good a place to sleep as any other, since he would not be welcome in bed with Gwen anyway. His inner dialogue continued as he stared into the glowing coals.

Bill considered what Hurgwig had said to him that afternoon and growled. It still made him furious that Hurgwig had not wanted him to return to the field yet. He had been ready to return to Egypt, where he knew that Willkie and Davis were beginning work on a new passage with some very promising looking markings. Bill kicked his foot against the ottoman as he muttered to himself that he didn't want to be trapped inside the bank where he still had to see Hurgwig's hairy ears every day. It didn't matter that the project that he was working on had been assigned to him because none of the other curse breakers had the requisite skill with concealment charms. Nothing in his life was going right.

Without having heard any sound, Bill was suddenly aware that she had come into the room and was standing behind him. He could smell her perfume plainly and, not being able to help himself, Bill turned in the chair to look at her.

"Are you going to stay here in this chair all night, Bill?"

"Probably." Bill saw the look on her face and closed his eyes and amended his statement. "I drank more than I meant to, Gwen. I didn't think that you would want me to come in with you."

Gwen pulled her dressing gown closer round her and said in a very quiet voice, "You always drink more than you mean to, Bill."

Bill wiped his hands over his face, trying to wake up his groggy mind. "I know and I am sorry that it upsets you."

Gwen seemed to teeter in place for a moment as she watched him and then with an expression in her eyes that told Bill that she was afraid of what she was saying, she spoke gently, "I don't want you to be this unhappy, Bill."

Bill pushed himself up out of the chair. "I'm acting like a berk, aren't I?"

"No, I wasn't saying that."

Bill raked his hands through his messy red hair. "Yes, I am. I have been spending too much time away from you, out with my friends or my brothers."

Gwen looked down at her slippers as she said almost inaudibly, "They are important to you."

Bill cleared his throat and rubbed the hair on his chin. "We both know that isn't what is going on."

Gwen looked alarmed and spoke quickly, "We don't have to talk about it, Bill. It is alright."

Bill shook his head and said tonelessly, "Fine. We won't talk."

Gwen seemed relieved. "Why don't you come sleep?"

Bill nodded and stumbled slightly as he followed her from the room.

When Bill stepped inside the bedroom, he could see that she had not been asleep when he arrived home. There was a book laid across the duvet and two candles were burning on the mantelpiece. Bill sat down on the edge of the bed to pull off his dragon hide boots and wondered what Gwen had been so afraid that he was going to say.

"Bill?"

Bill dropped his left boot on the floor and responded, "Mm?"

"May I tell you about something?"

Bill turned his head at the unusual note of fragility in his wife's voice. "Yes, of course. What is it?"

"Well, I mean that I got an owl from Elisabeth. I don't have anyone else with whom to talk."

Bill left off unfastening the buttons on his shirt and said gravely, "You can talk to me about anything, Gwen. I wish you would understand that."

"Well, it is…you know that she has been so stuck on her old boyfriend and she told Thomas Dowdie that she didn't know if she could marry him."

Bill forced himself not to show any annoyance. He was tired of Elisabeth MacLeod. He didn't like witches who played two wizards against each other, which was what he felt that she was doing. "Yes, I remember."

"Well Aurelius asked her to marry him. She told him that even if he rode across the stadium on an ancient Comet 67 wearing an old Gryffindor robe and waving a big banner announcing that he was giving up his bad ways that she wouldn't consider his proposal."

Bill could not keep himself from sighing. He quickly undid the rest of his buttons and tugged off his shirt as he replied, "So of course he did it."

"Yes. He's been banned from quidditch for two matches and the Arrows have assessedhim a fine for being out of uniform."

Cursing his lethargic body and wishing that he had a sobering potion, Bill pulled off his belt and asked, "And she is surprised?"

Gwen nodded. "Yes."

Bill stood up and let his trousers drop to the floor before inelegantly kicking them away. "She incited him to do it, Gwen. She was implying to him that he has to prove his love to her in some grand gesture. Of course he is young enough and immature enough and was probably drunk enough that something that stupid seemed like a good plan."

Gwen wrapped her arms round her knees that were tucked tightly under her chin. "Do you think he loves her?"

Bill rested his shoulders against the bed post to steady himself. "Of course he does. It is easy to see when an eighteen year old wizard is in love because they are so prone to doing asinine things to prove it. The question is really whether she will make a decision soon or not. She will be miserable living with him, of course, because he is an idiot who will never grow up and will spend every knut as soon as he gets it. But if she wants to live that sort of life then she might as well put the poor sod out of his misery and marry him.

Gwen hid her face in her arms as she said, "She says she that if he asked her to she'd run away to Dar es Salaam and live in a tent."

"So when he asks her again will she actually agree to marry him?"

"I think so."

Bill got up from the bed and walked across to the ancient oak chest of drawers where he opened a drawer and pulled out a clean white vest. "At last - a decision."

Gwen saw the dark red scar that stretched across his back as Bill pulled the thin cotton vest over his head and pushed his long arms through the arm holes. She nearly whispered, "Okay. I just wanted to see what you thought, I guess."

Bill turned so that Gwen was now able to see through the vest all of the dark green and black Saxon runes that marked his chest. Bill held on to the bed post again as he asked in a slightly slurred voice, "Are you disappointed?"

"Not as much as I should be. I am so tired of it all that I would almost be glad if she married a muggle if only she would make her decision."

Bill sloppily gestured with his wand towards the candles on the mantelpiece and the room plunged into darkness. "Yes, exactly."


	13. Chapter 13

Bill stopped to rest for a moment as the wet Welsh wind swirled about him. He had not met with very great success. Marc'harit Gurley had been resolute in her refusal to allow Gwen to visit her stepfather. Bill had trod as carefully as possible; obeying every strict rule of behaviour that he could remember from what Anders' great-uncle had instructed him. He had spoken only in French and essentially pled with his mother-in-law to even let Gwen speak via floo to her stepfather.

But Marc'harit Gurley had merely laughed at him. She had told him that she had not even informed her husband that Gwen had eloped until they had returned to Wales and that she had been keeping all of Gwen's owls from him since that time. It had become clear to Bill that Gwen's mother had finally found a way to keep Esmond Gurley entirely to herself and was not willing to share him even with her daughter. George had warned him that it would probably be a mistake to go into Wales, but Bill could not omit trying anything that might make Gwen happier. Unfortunately George had been right.

His only option now was to try to contact Gurley through Andromeda. He would have to approach Kent again, since Kent was on friendly terms with the elder Yaxley twin. Eldred Yaxley was a junior in Gurley's cohort and therefore could check the cohort register to find when Gurley would be putting in his hours in situ. Bill could find out with an inquiry, of course, however any inquiry might get passed on to Gurley, which was not likely to forward Bill's cause. Bill had not wanted to give Eldred Yaxley a chance to repay his brother Wilfred's debt to Charlie yet. He had intended to use the Yaxley brothers' obligation in order to help Ginny when she finished her training. However Ginny was married now and Harry could probably pull in more favours to help her than Bill could.

Bill reached the head of the road and looked round himself. This was the place, he knew it. He could apparate from here safely. In fact, they were supposed to be at his parents' house in almost an hour, so he had better hurry. He had to stop by George's flat first, but since Gwen might have forgot about that evening's dinner he really did need to be quick so he could give Gwen enough time to change.

As Bill barged into the sitting room from the kitchen forty minutes later, dusting off his robes from the fireplace, he called out, "Gwen? Where are you? We have to leave soon if we are going to…" Bill stopped as soon as he saw her and hurriedly pulled off his cloak and knelt down next to his wife on the rug. "What is it, Gwen?"

Gwen, who was holding in her hands a complicated hat of folded, stiff white lace that Bill recognised as an older style _coiffe_, said only, "Mammig sent it."

Recognising the Breton word for mother and knowing that Gwen's use of the term implied that she was very upset, Bill asked, "It is a _coiffe_?"

"Yes, of course. But it was my grandmother's. I was to have worn it for my wedding."

Bill frowned. "I see."

Gwen gestured to a long box with a lid that was partially ajar. "She sent the robes, as well."

Although he knew the answer Bill asked, "Your wedding robe?"

"Yes. My real father's family commissioned it when I was 12." Gwen set the _coiffe_ down on the floor reverently and then pushed open the lid to the box.

Bill saw a heavy black robe that was so covered in gold embroidery that it was probably stiff enough to stand on its own. The wide white lace collar was so heavily starched that it stuck up strangely from the rest of the dress. As Gwen lifted it from the box, Bill could see that the robe was a costume that clearly had incredibly poignant meaning to his wife.

"Just look, Bill. It would have been so beautiful. Have you ever seen anything like it?"

Bill thought privately that he would never have called it beautiful, but the handiwork was exquisite. The robe must have cost over a thousand galleons. "No, I haven't."

"I never thought that I would see it again. They only showed it to me once and it was only half done then. I have so little from my real father's family, but it used to make me happy to think that at least I would have a piece of him with me when I married. I had so many daydreams about how beautiful I would look sitting on the wedding throne."

Bill felt his stomach churning and the blood rushing to his ears as he realised how much Gwen had been longing for what she had missed when they eloped.

"My cousin Isolde used to say that she wouldn't marry any wizard whose Binding spell didn't have at least 10 levels. Most of the older families have ludicrously complex spells you know. I've heard that some take over an hour to complete. My cousin Maëllys's husband wouldn't allow her to take food that he had not prepared for her during their entire wedding trip. They are the only love marriage I ever remember in our family other than Mother and my stepfather and you and me. Most husbands only carry out the feeding tradition during the wedding party, which is eight hours at the most. But Olier still feeds a sweet cake to her on their anniversary and they've been married fifteen years."

Bill watched Gwen as she swayed back and forth, holding the robe up to herself and talking. Although she was speaking to him, he felt as though she didn't completely realise that he was listening. Yet she had classified their marriage as a love marriage. It was the first sure indication that she had ever given him that she saw it that way.

"Mammig sent another trunk full of things, too. It is in the kitchen. I don't know if you will want to keep any of it, but they are some of the things that came from the Bizouarn family when she was married. She has always hated it all and told me that I was supposed to have it when I married."

Bill looked in the direction of the kitchen and then back at Gwen. "Did she send a letter with all of this, Gwen? What was her reason in suddenly giving this to you?"

Gwen eyes seemed to focus suddenly on Bill and she hastily laid the robe in the box and said, "Yes, of course. It is on the desk there."

Bill stood up and reached forward to pull the parchment from the desk. It only took a glance for him to realise that he couldn't read it. "You'll have to tell me what it says."

Gwen's cheeks flushed slightly. "Oh. I had forgotten. She is sending me the dress and the other things since they are not hers to bestow, but are coming to me from my real father's family."

"Is that all?"

Gwen turned away and busied herself with patting down the robe in the box and straightening its folds. After a minute of silence she answered, "No. She asks me once again not to send any more owls to Father, since he doesn't want to hear from me anymore."

Bill uttered a heartfelt curse under his breath against Marc'harit Gurley. "I see."

"I'm sorry that I said all that before. I shouldn't have rambled on about all those things. They were just a silly girl's daydreams. I didn't have any idea then what I was really fantasising about."

Bill knelt down beside Gwen and said gently, "I wish you wouldn't hide away from me, Gwen. I had no idea that you had been missing all of those things. You never talked to me about it."

Gwen closed the box and picked up the _coiffe_, which she then set on top of the box. As she played with the long streamers, Gwen answered, "There wasn't any point, Bill. I gave up on those traditions once I'd met you, since there was no chance that I could ever be married to you that way."

Bill blinked as he gazed fixedly at his wife, who was obsessively smoothing out the fabric of a streamer. "Is there nothing that we could do now, Gwen?"

"What do you mean? About our wedding?"

"Is there anything that I can do for you that would give some of that back to you?"

Gwen swallowed convulsively. "I don't know, Bill. All those daydreams were looking forward to a future that I will never have. I don't want to have it either. I would have done it all and married Servan de Plugastel and lived in his draughty home on the coast just to please Mammig, but then everything changed."

Bill pulled Gwen's hand away from the _coiffe_ and held it tightly in his lap. "Tell me what changed, please."

Gwen stared at Bill for a moment before she replied, "Well I could have made myself marry to please the family when I didn't actually love anyone else, Bill. But how could I do it when I wanted you?"

Bill closed his eyes and made a superhuman effort to control himself as he asked, "You wanted me because you knew that I was in love with you or because you loved me, Gwen?"

Gwen's hands jerked to her face and she got up on her knees and crawled over closer to Bill. As she spoke she looked up into his face. "Because I love you, Bill. You didn't understand that?"

Bill could only manage a one word reply, "No."

Gwen placed both of her hands in Bill's and leant forward. "Why else would I have done all this, Bill? Of course I love you. But we haven't been happy at all and I haven't had any idea what to do about it."

Bill's mind slogged through his emotions, trying to form a response but unable to process everything that he had heard. "You never told me, Gwen."

Gwen allowed herself to be pulled forward by Bill's left arm into his lap. It was a full minute before Bill asked, "Why did you never tell me, my love?"

Gwen tried to move to a more comfortable position, but had to resign herself to speaking into Bill's shoulder because his hold on her was too firm. "I did not know that I needed to say anything, Bill. It seemed impossible to me that you did not know, since nothing else would have made me do what I have done. Especially the night that I practically begged you to propose to me."

Bill's voice rumbled in Gwen's ear through his chest as he answered, "That is not how I remember that night, Gwen."

"Well I did."

Bill shook his head. "You have to know that I have been looking for any indication from you that you returned my feelings. For all the times that I have told you how I love you, why did you never say anything in return?"

Gwen replied uncertainly, "We don't talk about those things, Bill. We are taught to show our emotions only through our actions. I don't know…I know that you are different from us but I don't know how to say those things to you."

Bill finally released his hold on her and looked down into Gwen's face as she sat up. "I need to hear you tell me what you feel, Gwen. I have been going mad trying to understand you these four months. I never know what you want from me and even though you will go along with anything I want, I am not a fool. I can see when you are unhappy."

Gwen did not respond, but continued to look at him with a hard, intent expression. However, Bill had seen her posture stiffen and so he pulled away from her with a grunt of anger. "Maybe I can't be the wizard you want, Gwen. I don't know what you are looking for from me. I have tried to make you happy, but I can't bear this." Bill turned away and stood up from the floor. He pressed his hands against the mantelpiece and stood looking into the fire as he spoke. "I have to keep proving myself constantly by showing how powerful I can be, but I don't want that. Just because I can get something by force doesn't mean that I should have to do it. Can't you be satisfied with knowing that I could?"

Bill heard Gwen move behind him and felt her hand on his shoulder. Her voice was unusually forceful as she said, "Bill."

He did not turn round, but continued unhappily, "Gwen tell me, is there some one thing that you have been waiting for me to do? Do I have to learn a specific spell or is there some tradition that I have trodden all over with my 'English ignorance'? What is it that I have to do?"

Bill turned round from the fire and saw that Gwen was looking at him in a way that _no one_ had ever done before. Before he could speak, she said in a very shaky voice, "I have seen us falling apart from the beginning, but I didn't know what to do either, Bill. I have been so sure that you were going to end it because I know that I haven't been what you wanted."

Bill placed his hands on her hips and replied tightly, "I don't want to end it, Gwen, I want to fix this."

The next moment, Bill was almost knocked back as Gwen jumped up and threw her arms about his neck and said forcefully, "I want that, too, Bill." Staring down at his wife, who was gazing up at him with unexpected intensity, Bill realised that she meant it.


	14. Chapter 14

"Ginny wanted me to give this to you for Gwen."

Bill reached out his left hand to take the small brown box with a sigh. "How was it after we had gone, Harry?"

Harry ran his heavily scarred hand shakily through his longish black hair. "Rotten, frankly."

Leaning back into his chair, Bill responded dully, "I'm sorry, Harry."

Harry shook his head. "Isn't your fault, Bill. I sided with you, which is why she was so furious. I told her that to continue this grudge is ridiculous when there is no mistake after the party how Gwen feels about you."

Bill reached across to set the box down on the desk to his right and said unhappily, "She is more furious with me than with Gwen, you know. I don't think that she ever was truly close to Gwen really. My wife isn't easy to understand, Harry, and with all of her eccentricities she can be incomprehensible. I wish it weren't making things difficult for you though, mate. The first months of marriage are hard enough."

Harry smiled crookedly as he looked beyond Bill with a strange gleam in his eyes. "Ginny and I have been…really, don't worry about us. She is wonderful, actually."

Bill nodded. "Yes, Ginny is something rare."

Harry turned an all too intelligent look on Bill and shook his head slightly. Harry watched sympathetically as Bill began searching through his pockets clumsily with his bandaged right hand. After a moment Harry held out a very battered silver case with the initials SB engraved on the lid and said, "Mongolian?"

Bill looked up and his body relaxed visibly with relief. "Thanks. Much better than the Turkish I've got hidden in this robe somewhere." Dropping two pinches of needle on the inside of the case lid, Bill commented, "Did you talk to Ron again?"

Harry grimaced. "Yes. He made an excellent point, too. We're hypocrites."

Bill agreed with a short laugh, "Dirty great hypocrites, yes, but I don't want Ron to start. It is a bad habit that becomes a dangerous crutch."

Harry shrugged, "Yes. I will not continue for much longer. But I need more time for now. When I start at Hogwarts I want to have given it up."

Bill nodded encouragingly. "It will be a new beginning for you, so perhaps you can make a clean break of several bad habits."

Harry looked up at Bill with surprise. Bill dryly answered Harry's unasked question. "I've known about it for almost a year, Harry. Ginny knows, too."

Harry scowled, but didn't comment. After several minutes of silence, Harry said, "It is still home, Bill, but it is like going home after your family has moved away. Everyone important is gone. Part of me doesn't want to return."

Bill considered Harry for a moment. "That was exactly how Remus saw it, Harry. Hogwarts was the first time he ever belonged, the first place he found friendship, but then he returned after losing everything. You'll have Ginny when she isn't off training and Ron is being posted to Hogsmeade. It won't be the same, but I think it will be good for you."

Harry repeated with surprise, "Ron will be in Hogsmeade? He thought he was being sent to Berkshire for his second year."

Bill smiled grimly, "No, Anders warned me that they've changed all that now that you've accepted the Defence position. They are posting two additional aurors to Hogsmeade each with a second year trainee and Ron will be one of them."

Harry opened his mouth for a moment and then closed it again. After a few seconds he said, "They are going to put Ron to defend me when he hasn't even finished his training? They can't do that to him, Bill."

Bill indicated with his hand that he was serious and then added, "I don't like it either. But they know that Ron would do anything to protect you and so many aurors were killed off or injured that they can't afford not to use trainees. You already know that the third years have been getting 'practical' experience in London this year."

Harry made a noise of disgust and slunk back into his chair. "Ginny is going to be furious when she hears that."

Bill sighed and commented sadly. "Mum will lose the plot entirely, I fear."

Both wizards were silent as they stared into the flames in the small fire grate for several minutes. Finally it was Harry who asked awkwardly, "How did things go for you after the party though, Bill?"

Bill looked at Harry with a mysterious smile, "Very, very well."

Harry turned back at the fire with a smirk. "Very unusual traditions, the Breton."

Bill laughed. "You are not joking. Do you know how many damping levels alone there were in that binding spell? In addition to the progressions and charismatic intervals."

Harry answered with a snort of laughter, "All I know is that Ron was completely asleep before it was done."

Bill grinned. "Not surprised. But it was worth it. Gwen wasn't expecting me to have prepared a binding spell for her and the look on her face when she realised what I was doing was more than worth the pain from performing it."

"You did look ill there at the end."

Bill's face twitched. "That was probably the Sanglante charm."

Harry blanched and changed the topic quickly, "She looked very happy, Bill. Ginny said to me that she didn't remember Gwen ever looking truly happy before."

Bill smiled softly, "She was. It wasn't her traditional wedding, but she got to wear those robes from her family and get fed the traditional sweet cake."

Harry began to speak, but stopped as he heard the door open behind him. Both Harry and Bill turned round as another wizard entered the small parlour. Harry immediately stood up and said, "Hello Master Drumbrogian."

Not rising from his seat, Bill nodded, "Drumbrogian."

The dark haired wizard with a very long black beard ignored Harry, but responded with a nod to Bill. "Weasley. Have you finished with the _Rote Coverte_?"

Bill looked over to the desk that he had been using, which was covered with a stack of books. "Not really. I will probably finish today though."

The wizard looked annoyed, but merely bowed and said, "Kindly leave it in my box, Weasley. I don't want Gurley to find it or I won't see it for weeks."

Bill's face showed a look of sudden interest. "Is Esmond Gurley actually here?"

Drumbrogian waved his hand dismissively, "Yes. The first time he has darkened the doors of Andromeda's new building and nothing but criticisms. Quite a clash of wands it was, he and Kent."

Bill stood up hastily, knocking his chair back into the desk causing Harry to stand up again in surprise. "Kent! That rubbishing little sod."

Drumbrogian peered with intense curiosity at Bill, who rushed past him and out of the room.

Looking along the dark, bare black walls of the long corridor, Bill lunged forward and made for a narrow green door at the far end. As soon as he reached it he yanked it open without knocking and saw Luther Kent lounging on a chair with a very large book in his lap. "What were you thinking? Is he still here?"

Luther Kent raised his eyebrows and stood up slowly from his chair. "Of course he's still here. He's got an escape for a few hours from that bitch you call a mother-in-law, hasn't he?"

Bill almost snarled, "Were you considering telling me he'd arrived?"

Luther's face lost some of its cool composure as he began to look genuinely surprised. "Calm down, Weasley. I sent an Aviatrice. You didn't get it?"

Bill stepped back somewhat and said simply, "No."

"You aren't untraceable at the moment by any chance?"

Bill muttered, "Bugger." Raising his wand to his neck and speaking under his breath, Bill then looked at Luther and apologised solemnly, "Sorry, Kent. I think I'm beginning to lose the plot myself. Where is Gurley?"

At that moment a small red object that looked somewhat like a paper hat with wings appeared floating in front of Bill. Bill reached out and unfolded it quickly. Immediately after Bill had read it, the crimson Aviatrice burst into flames and Bill said, "Right then. Is he in the senior common or in a private parlour?"

Luther said softly with a gesture, "Things must have got very bad, Weasley."

Bill did not reply, but asked more quietly, "Which room, Kent?"

"The red room. You will remember not to use permanent spells at least, Weasley?"

Bill turned on his heel and walked to the door saying sarcastically, "I haven't forgotten the society rules. More than one maimed body a week is frowned upon."

Luther Kent stared at Bill's retreating back and then, quite uncharacteristically, laughed loudly.

* * *

"Just look at that, Arthur." 

Arthur Weasley dutifully lifted his head from the small circuit board that he had been happily poking with the tip of his wand and followed the direction of his wife's excited gaze across the garden. Seeing both his eldest son laughing so hard that he was lying back on the grass as he held his stomach and his son's tiny, dark haired wife, whowas seated next to Bill waving her arms manically as she talked, Arthur smiled broadly and replied, "Yes. For a while I didn't think we'd ever see him like that again."

Her pleasure diminishing somewhat as she heard her husband's response, Molly anxiously asked, "Do you think she is going to be able to make him happy, Arthur?"

Arthur was still watching his son, who had just reached up a hand and forcibly pulled his wife onto the grass with him, and did not respond for a moment as he considered his daughter-in-law's obviously contented reaction. "I don't know, Molly. Bill has done everything in his power to please her and I think that he has succeeded for now. Yet I don't really understand her myself, dear."

Molly waved her wand at the long wooden table that she had been arranging for dinner and said, "We didn't understand Fleur either, but he was terribly happy with her, wasn't he?"

Arthur grabbed his wife's hand as she fitfully straightened some cutlery and responded gently, "Yes, he was, Molly. But if he and Gwenaëlle can be happy together it will be very different from his marriage to Fleur. Bill isn't the same person that he was before."

Molly sniffed. "I know. My happy boy is gone, isn't he?"

"You cannot look at them out there right now and say that he isn't deeply happy with her, dear. But the feelings between Bill and Gwenaëlle are much deeper and more complicated than with Fleur. He's been through far too much to be capable of such a simple love any longer, Molly."

Molly sat down next to Arthur, who put his arm round his wife. "I don't know if I can bear to watch him continue to suffer, Arthur, and he will. Every time that they row over something he'll be in agony until she forgives him. I am afraid that she will continue to drive him on to become what she thinks he should be and Bill will lose himself for good."

Arthur looked down at Molly and smiled sadly, "Yes, their relationship will never be an easy one, my dear. But I don't think that we have to be afraid of Bill losing himself again. It did seem like that for those horrible first five months of the marriage. But if you watch her with him, Molly, you can tell how she feels about him."

Molly shook her head. "She doesn't talk about him with me. She doesn't seem to feel comfortable talking to me about almost anything, actually."

Arthur gently reminded her, "Unless you say something she thinks is somehow critical of Bill, dear."

Molly huffed, "All I said was that he ought to be more careful about how those nasty goblins perceive him at the bank and I thought she was going to hex my eyes out. You wouldn't think she would disagree, since she won't allow him to wear anything but formal robes to work."

Arthur laughed lightly, "My dear, she might agree with you completely, but just imagine what you would have done if my mother had said something critical of me."

Molly looked coyly at her husband. "I don't have to imagine, Arthur."

Arthur looked somewhat shocked. "I thought you and my mother got on well."

Molly smiled, "Very well, except when she said that you ought to have taken a more important position in the ministry. I don't think that she ever got that cooker to heat properly after that."

Blinking with surprise at his wife, Arthur said carefully, "No, my brothers and I had to buy her a new one. I wonder why Mother never mentioned to us why?"

Molly snorted. "She was not a _stupid_ woman, Arthur."

"Who wasn't stupid, Mum?"

Molly turned round and saw her son George standing next to a tall, blond witch who was holding a large green pot. "George! And Patricia! You're early."

"I caught George sneaking into the roast twice, so I thought we'd better bring it by now else there wouldn't be any left."

Molly hurried forward to take the pot from her daughter-in-law and kissed her son on the cheek. "Remind me to show you the Hot Fingers charm. It is the only way that my food ever made it to the table without being half finished before dinner with six sons, dear."

Patricia Stimpson-Weasley laughed and looked at George, who appeared somewhat surprised. "You will definitely have to tell me about that one, especially if the newest Weasley is going to be anything like his father."

Molly shook her head as she plopped the pot down on her cooker and lifted the lid. "They all are. Arthur and his brothers were equally bad. But you might be lucky, Patricia. Your family has plenty of daughters."

Patricia returned her mother-in-law's smile and looked at George. "That would be a blessing, wouldn't it?"

George shrugged, "Well we'll find out in four months. Who else is coming? Is Angie here yet?"

Molly looked towards the door to the garden. "No, I don't think that Angie is going to be coming much more, George. She has been seeing Roger Davies for a few months now, hasn't she? We can't expect her to stay a Weasley forever."

George seemed about to say something, which promised to be somewhat ugly, but Patricia interceded. "I think that Bill and his wife are here though, George."

George looked at Patricia, who fixed a very powerful look on her husband, and then he said only, "Davies. Fred would have…I'm going to go find Bill, Patty, are you coming?"

Patricia nodded and looked quickly at Molly before she let George wrap an arm round her to lead her outside.

As the door to the garden slammed shut behind George and his wife, the distinct sound of a floo arrival could be heard in the kitchen grate. Arthur turned away from looking with concern at his wife, and smiled as he saw that the three remaining members of his family had arrived.

Harry Potter, who had Ginny's hand held tightly in his own, said cheerfully, "Hello, Mr Weasley. Hi Mrs Weasley. We've collected Ron for you."

Ron mumbled under his breath, "I'm not a parcel, you thickhead," before submitting to his mother's hug.


	15. Epilogue

Without raising her head from what she was doing, Gwen asked sharply, "What are you doing?"

Bill's hand dropped from where he was leaning against the entrance as he replied with surprise, "I didn't think you knew I was there. I was watching you."

Gwen looked up from the small sewing frame in her lap and said with illusory seriousness, "I'm not deaf, Bill. You have quite large feet you know – anyone could have heard you coming."

Bill laughed. "I would have failed the stealth portion of Auror training apparently."

Gwen turned back to her sewing with a shrug. "Which your brother has finally passed, I understand."

Bill ducked down so that he could enter the tent fully and smiled tentatively, "Yes. Did Mum owl you, too? I don't think that she can decide whether she is happy that he is fully trained now and can be expected to manage himself in the field without getting himself killed through incompetence or more frightened that he will now be sent on assignments since he is qualified."

Gwen cast a solemn look at Bill. "As long as he was only a trainee, Bill, then she had hopes that he still might not be an Auror. All of you lot decided on careers that were almost designed to terrorise a mother, but Ron chose the worst. She is now in daily dread of receiving a Lecteur owl."

Bill shook his head and placed a hand on Gwen's shoulder as he said firmly, "No. He is going to be fine. He is well prepared after three years of Auror training. There won't be any more Lecteurs."

Gwen set down her frame and stood up from the chair. "I think you and I both have had enough of them in the last few years, yes. But she worries about you almost as much as she does about Ron, you know, now that we are here."

"She will worry no matter where I am, Gwen. I think that is what you mothers do, isn't it love?"

Gwen turned her head towards the tent flaps that led to a small bedroom where a charmed harp could be heard softly playing and replied, "I had no idea how naturally it came. Now that Charles is walking I am always afraid he will get into something dangerous. I do not understand how English mothers can bear to leave their infants off a tether. It is not natural."

Bill smiled and replied gently. "It doesn't matter what English mothers do, love, you should follow your own customs. Charles doesn't know what it means to be Breton, French, or English. He just knows that you are his mother and he is one of the happiest babies I've ever seen."

"He is happy, isn't he? That is your influence, I think. He might look like me, Bill, but his personality is all you. He won't really be Breton, no matter what I teach him."

Bill frowned and placed his arms round his wife loosely so he could still look into her face as he asked, "Will that disappoint you, love? We can still move to Morbihan. Now that your cousin Yaguel heads the family things could be very different. He has offered you acceptance, hasn't he?"

Gwen shook her head. "That does not matter. With Mother and Uncle both dead there is not enough protection for me now in Brittany. I have explained all of this to you before, Bill. The current Master of the Bizouarn is still my father's cousin Cadoc. He does not want any descendants of the last master in Morbihan, Bill. That was why my mother had to flee into Wales after my father's death. Only once my uncle's supporters became strong enough was it safe for Mother to return with me. When Uncle Gwezheneg died all of my protection vanished with him. Charles would not be safe."

Bill kissed the top of Gwen's head and asked, "Yaguel's position is still too weak? I thought that he had married Servan de Plougastel's sister. Surely de Plougastel is enough of an ally for your family."

Gwen finally smiled. "So you _are_ listening when I talk about all of this then? Yes, Yaguel married Clariadne de Plougastel, but they haven't had any children yet. Not until they have any children will that alliance really be sealed, Bill. Until then I won't go into Morbihan with Charles."

Bill shook his head. "Then that is settled. I only want to be sure that you know I would go if you think it would be better for Charles or for you."

After giving him a slight smile, Gwen wriggled free of Bill's grasp and settled heavily back into her well-cushioned chair as she said, "But it isn't better for you or for Charles that you give up your career, Bill. You can't work for Gringotts if we are in Brittany. Anyway, I think that it is good for us here. Charles has several other children nearby with whom he loves to play and there aren't that many places we can live where wizarding children are so close to each other."

Bill frowned with concern. "But the heat has been bothering you. I can tell that you are feeling ill much of the time."

As Bill sat down on the ottoman in front of her and placed her badly swollen feet in his lap, Gwen smiled softly at him. "Yes, but I felt just this bad with Charles, you know. And we were in England then, so it doesn't follow that I'll be any less miserable if we left Egypt. The baby will be here in less than three weeks if all goes well anyway."

Rubbing his hand along her shins as he gazed devotedly at Gwen, Bill commented, "It hardly seems possible that Charles is already fourteen months old and there will be a new one soon."

Gwen leant back into her chair and replied, "You had an active hand in that you know."

Gwen had spoken so sarcastically that Bill had to stare at her for a moment before he was certain that she had been teasing him. Laughing as he spoke, Bill replied, "How can I help it? You're completely irresistible. But I'm going to be paying for it, too, aren't I?"

Gwen reached out her hand to grasp his as she said with amusement, "You have got quite excellent at nappies. That isn't a skill that you would want to let go to waste really."

Bill raised her hand to his lips and kissed it as he looked directly at her. He responded with deceptive seriousness, "I was utterly deceived when I married you, love. I had always heard that Breton witches were fiercely house proud and never required wizards to be involved in anything having to do with children or the kitchen. I had these marvellous visions of my dutiful, obedient little wife waiting on me hand and foot as I lounged about drinking a nice glass of Black Aquavit at the end of the day and look what I got instead."

Gwen laughed throatily and said, "You poor, poor man. Why did you think I married an English wizard?"

Bill leant forward so that he could whisper in her ear, "Because we are so easy to enslave?"

Gwen turned so that she could whisper back, "Precisely."

Bill's voice dropped even lower as he asked, "It didn't have anything to do with love?"

"Not a thing."

"How very disappointing."

Gwen pressed her face so close that her nose was touching his as she asked, "Is it?"

"Yes, because the box I have in my pocket was meant for the witch who loves me. But I suppose that doesn't mean you."

Gwen responded immediately to his kiss before replying, "No, that would definitely not be me. I'm only the witch who _desperately_ loves you. That's rather different."

Bill's hand was holding Gwen's head gently as he peered searchingly into her eyes before he kissed her nose and said, "Yes my darling, that is rather different. How fortunate that your wizard is hopelessly in love with you then. Did you want to see what is in the box?"

Gwen nuzzled his ear with her nose and whispered, "Yes, please."


End file.
